


Strange Diamonds

by sku7314977



Series: Falling For The Stars [1]
Category: Adam (2009), Charlie Countryman (2013)
Genre: Adam is super cute, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Developing Relationship, Falling In Love, Feel-good, First Dates, Fluff, Grinding, Happy Ending, Kissing, M/M, Mentions of previous drug addiction, Nigel is dealing with divorce, Romance, Sex, Slow Burn, Smut, Spacedogs, This is a feel good piece for me, Touching, When Nigel loves he loves hard, criminal activity, nigel/adam - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-19 14:22:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4749635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sku7314977/pseuds/sku7314977
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An innocent trip to the museum turns into an unexpected adventure flipping Adam's world upside down when he's tricked into being the drop man for a double-cross exchange between a thug and the guy stealing his wife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mads_Mikkelsen_Enthusiast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mads_Mikkelsen_Enthusiast/gifts).



> Hello my darlings!
> 
> I need to apologies for my unexpected hiatus. I simultaneously lost my internet (the line broke and the company refused to fix it), lost my job and am preparing for a move...so, sadly I haven't had time to write. 
> 
> That said I've been preparing this story for a while with the intention of NOT posting until I was done writing it, but it looks like I'm going to be a while longer before I have free time for real writing and this story is only two chapters away from being done, so I'm posting this lovely piece as my in between.
> 
> Thank you all for your patience, I miss my readers and writing and Hannibal~<3
> 
> I own nothing. 
> 
> Beta read by the most amazing and lovely DiedOfEnnui. If you haven't read her work check it out, she's amazing.

The sun feels so warm today, large and bright in the sky – incidentally, a dwarf yellow main sequence star.  It was the first star his father had ever taught him about.  Not Adam’s favorite to read about now, but it had been his introduction to space and its vast endlessness.  
   
With the sunshine and “July in Manhattan” temperature warming his skin, Adam certainly doesn’t need to wear a sweater. The weather forecast had said it would be warm today, with a chance of clouds and a high of 97ºF. He’s glad that he doesn’t have to worry about being hindered by cold or rain as he makes the long trek to the museum. He’d made sure to put sunscreen on his arms and face this morning so he wouldn’t burn during the approximate 40 minute walk.  
   
Adam did not enjoy the confined feeling of public transportation, so the sidewalk was much better than taking the train.  He didn’t like when the people pushed against him and it became overcrowded, too many bodies crammed into one tiny space, no place for him to escape when, inevitably, he’d want to. It was easier for him to walk the long distance and not worry about being overloaded by too many bodies or the daunting prospect of missing his intended stop.  He knew how to take public transportation, he’d done it with his father, and on occasion by himself, but it had been a stressful experience for him every time, and one he didn’t want to repeat if he could avoid it.  
   
So this morning, Adam walks. He takes the white stone steps into the American Museum of Natural History and passes through the large double doors into the grand entrance, polished floors and small exhibits greeting him upon entry.  He pauses to look at a large framed display of pinned butterflies in the front lobby, taking the time to carefully read each Latin name and look at the accompanying insect before walking on long skinny legs to the front counter.  
   
He has been dreading this part of the trip.  The desk workers always look so busy when he approaches for a ticket. He can never tell if they are waiting for him to announce himself or if he is interrupting them, their attention focused on the bright computer screen or a conversation with a co-worker.  
   
He steels himself and sidles a few steps closer to the large wooden desk. A pretty woman with blond hair tied back in a bun smiles at him, pausing her fingers’ pursuit of keys to give Adam her full attention.  He doesn’t ask if he’s interrupting, if it’s rude or if he should wait, but he’s seen others approach to purchase their tickets without worrying about whether the woman at the counter is busy or not. He hopes it’s okay.  
   
“How can I help you?” she asks, looking to meet Adam’s eyes while he keeps his own sight focused on the large copper colored letters of the museum’s title over her shoulder.  He prefers not to make eye contact, especially if he’s nervous like he is right now. It’s hard for him to hold it and use his words at the same time, much easier instead to look over their shoulder, or at his feet, or the desk.  
   
“I’d like to buy a ticket,” he states, tone neutral and matter of fact. His eyes shift from the brass letters behind her to the pencil cup in front of her as she tries again to catch his eyes.  As much as he does not like eye contact, he likes it even less when strangers try to force it. A small, irritable part of him finds it condescending. It serves to remind him that people are aware that he is different somehow. He shifts from one foot to the other and waits for the woman to ring through his ticket.  
  
“Would you like to sign up for one of our tours?  We have several scheduled throughout the day for various areas of the museum.  Some still have a few openings if you’re interested in space or dinosaurs.”  
   
He nods, eyes flicking up to meet hers for half a second before moving back to the desk.  “D-do you have any audio tours available for the Earth and Space exhibit?” he makes himself ask.  It’s always hardest to get started, especially if it’s been sometime since he’s needed to speak. Those first few words are more challenging than those that follow.  He adjusts to conversation a little easier once it’s been initiated and has a clear end goal, like acquiring his ticket, or even better, if he has an opportunity to talk about something that he has an interest in. Initiating conversation though… it’s always difficult.  
   
“We do have audio tours. Are you interested in the general admission plus one or the super saver admission?  They’ll allow you to view one of the special exhibits like the IMAX, 3D film, or Hayden Planetarium Space Show.”  
   
“I like the space show,” Adam ventures, a little more enthusiasm in his voice. He thinks of his last visit to the museum. It had been his birthday, and his father had brought him for them to watch together. He stares off past the desk for a moment, remembering when he had a companion for these sorts of visits.  
   
“Would you like the general plus one?”  
   
Adam jumps a little, startled out of his reverie by the woman’s prompting.  
   
“Uh, no, thank you,” he says, deciding to end this desk visit as quickly as possible. “I’d like a general admission ticket and the audio tour for Earth and Space please.”  
   
He takes out his wallet, placing the pre-prepared exact change for the general admission on the counter.  He’s seen this exhibit thirteen times by himself, days that he’s taken off during the week to visit during a time when less people would be present and milling about – days like today. Monday, ten in the morning, still close enough to opening to have most of the expected museum goers still at home or working.    
   
The woman rings him up, sliding a small digital box over the counter toward him with his ticket and a pair of over-the-ear headphones. These he hands back to her with an attempt at an apologetic smile aimed at her shoulder. He takes out his own set of ear buds instead. Adam understands that returning something offered to him can be seen as rude, so he does his best to smooth over the awkwardness of the moment and walk away quickly.  
   
Happy to have made his purchase and finished the most challenging portion of his outing, Adam strides more comfortably down the long hallways that he’s already familiar with. He pauses to read the exhibit signs posted outside each hall, despite having read them many times before, and makes his way to his favorite display.  
   
“Hey!” A small thin man across the room calls loudly to him, striding over and grabbing Adam by his shoulders, getting much closer than Adam likes anyone to be.  
   
“U-uh, h-hi,” Adam stammers, so startled that he’s unsure what to do about the stranger touching him. The man’s face is so close to his he has no choice but to meet his eyes or nose.  Rationally, Adam knows that this man is within his personal space. Even from watching other people interact he is sure that others are generally only permitted within such a distance if they are family or close friends.  
   
The man clinging to his shoulder with his face inches from his isn’t his friend, and he shouldn’t be holding Adam like this.   
   
“Listen, I-uh, I have to meet up with this guy in a second but, ya see, I really gotta take a piss.”  He looks back over his shoulder.  The man is sweating, a thin sheen of liquid salt clinging to his skin that makes Adam’s nose wrinkle, his muscles go tight with discomfort.   
   
“C-could you, could you just stand here for a second and wait for me?”  He looks over his shoulder again, jerking at the sound of footsteps farther down the hallway.  
   
“I-”  Adam isn’t given the chance to refuse, the man shoves a stuffed dinosaur into his arms and takes off running in the wrong direction for the bathroom.  Adam thinks that he’ll end up walking all the way back to the entrance before he successfully finds a men’s room.  
   
Alone now, he shifts with nervous energy from one foot to the other, tense, skittish movements, clenching and unclenching his free hand as he tries to think of what to do with himself in this sudden derailing of his morning.  
   
He’d wanted to go to the Earth and Space exhibit and have plenty of time to look at the new asteroid they’d added before he left to have lunch.  Now his whole morning would feel rushed, which pushed his anxiety up one more notch.  He would have to have lunch late or rush through his time at each exhibit. His whole morning now depended on how long it took for the stranger to come back from the bathroom, or his friend to arrive.  
   
And what was he supposed to say to this friend?  Was he meant to give him the toy?  Was he supposed to ask him to wait?  Let them know that the man would be back soon and to wait here in the hallway?  
   
Adam wished he had thought to ask for more clarification, or even had the presence of mind to push the toy back and walk quickly away from the insistent stranger. He’d been so surprised. Now he wouldn’t have any further instructions unless he left the requested spot to chase the man to the bathroom. Or could he just set the toy down and hope the man didn’t find him again?  
   
He weighed his options and decided that, at the very least, he’d have to wait for the man to return.  Hopefully the strange man’s trip to the washroom was quick, and he would return before his friend arrived. Adam certainly didn’t feel like he could explain what he was doing standing there when he didn’t know himself.  Lacking options, he turned his attention to the toy in his arms.  
   
It was a Quetzalcoatlus, the largest member of the pterosaurs, both in skeletal structure of the actual species and in the current selection of plushies.  He had seen them next to the triceratops and apatosaurus in bins at the dinosaur exhibits store before.  He stared at the oddly haphazard stitching that made the doll’s belly bulge, touching the crude black thread and feeling the irregular hardness of something hidden inside.  
   
OoOoO  
   
Nigel was itching for a smoke.  
   
The deal had smelled sour to him since the beginning and now that he was at the drop point waiting for the sorry fuck with a stuffed dino to give him his fucking goods his instincts were screaming double-cross.  
   
He fingered the pack of Camels in his jean pocket and debated leaving the drop point in favor of a much needed cigarette.  If the stupid shit was already running late there was a better chance that he wasn’t coming at all than that he’d be showing in the next ten minutes.  
   
Feeling his phone vibrate in his back pocket he slipped the burner from his jeans he looked at the two words showing in white block text against the screen.  
   
“Dino Exhibit.”  
   
Teeth clenched, he checked the time and began toward the newly appointed drop zone.  The kid was ten minutes late.  People don’t show up late for a drop, not if they want to make their goddamn money.  If Nigel hadn’t already paid the shithead he would cut his losses and leave him with the goods.  
   
You don’t show up late and you sure as hell don’t change the drop point.  Not unless something is going south.  Either this guy’s avoiding the cops and still looking to follow through on the bargain and keep his teeth, or this is a discrete warning that the deal is off and the fuzz is involved.  Nigel figures that would be giving this piece of work too much credit.  They’d had one conversation: a phone call through another burner that told Nigel this kid didn’t know shit about the business.  
   
He stalked into the dino exhibit, keen eyes scanning the nearly empty museum for his seller with the fucking stuffed toy.  He didn’t know what he looked like beyond a basic description from his wife.  He never would have taken this gig if it weren’t for her.  A favor he wouldn’t repeat, no matter how convincing the sex was during the request.  
   
To his growing ire, he didn’t see Countryman anywhere, which was a shame because he had a beautiful mental picture of the man with his head in a bag, which Nigel desperately wanted to see become reality.  
   
Nigel lived by the motto, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.”  There would always be things you could pay some poor piss lick to handle, small exchanges, muscle work, but something like this?  He should have done it him-fucking-self.  Flown out for the pick-up and smuggled them into the country in his own goddamn asshole.  
   
But Gabi, his darling Gabi, she had vouched for this piss lick, some cousin of her’s hard on cash and needing a bit of work. Nigel had let himself be shafted by paying the fucker up front instead of at the exchange or the more classic “half-now, half-later”.  It was a favor he’d done for his darling wife and a mistake that he should have been smart enough to avoid.  
   
Keen eyes spotted someone further down the hall standing with a stuffed doll.  Nigel squinted at him a moment and decided it couldn’t be Countryman, this guy was too clean shaven, all pressed clothes and neatly parted hair, he couldn’t be the idiot he’d spoken with on the phone.  In truth he didn’t look like he belonged in the business at all, but he had the fucking doll in hand.  Nigel was either about to make another big mistake that Charlie would be paying for, or, he’d found his drop man.  
   
OoOoO  
   
“You!”  
   
Adam’s attention is called for a second time, dragging him away from the doll he’d been analyzing warily, to a broad shouldered man standing in front of him.  At least this stranger isn’t in his face or touching him without permission.  Better than that last man.   
   
“You Charlie Countryman?”  
   
“No, my name is Adam Raki. Are you the friend the man is waiting for?”  
   
“We’re not friends,” Nigel says, trying to meet the younger man’s eyes and finding that he can’t. The elusive things meet his for less than a second before they settle on Nigel’s shoes instead.  “What are you doing with the dinosaur?”  
   
“I’m holding it,” Adam says steadily.  He thought that much was obvious.  
   
“I can fucking see that, why the hell do you have it?”  
   
“A man gave it to me.”  
   
“You his fucking bag man?”   
   
Nigel hadn’t thought Countryman would be smart enough to get himself a bag man, to avoid the meeting all together.  Grabbing the dinosaur from the kid, Nigel catches the line of black thread between his teeth to tear the seam open, prying its fluffy belly open with a finger to look inside.   
   
Adam makes an uncomfortable little sound as the toy is ripped, disliking destruction in any form, and wondering why this man would ruin his plush charge.  
   
If Nigel notices, he gives no indication. Checking the decoy was something he would have liked to do someplace a little less public, a little more quiet, but this deal – this double cross – is something he is going to collect collateral on.  The sooner he shows Countryman he’s onto him, the sooner he can cave in his teeth.   
   
One clear look inside the toy and Nigel turns narrowed eyes to the young man standing with nervous twitches in front of him.  “Where’s the ice?”  
   
A moment of silence passes while Adam parses through the question and tries to make sense of it.  
   
“I don’t understand,” he admits when he could make nothing of the man’s meaning. He doesn’t know what a “bag man” is, and plush toys are filled with polyester fiber blends, not ice. Either these men are confused, or they are scheming something. If it’s the latter, they had decided to include Adam without telling him what he was supposed to do.  
   
“This is a fucking Pterodactyl with a rock stuffed in its belly,” the man growls low, squeezing the toy tight enough to have the tendons standing on the back of his hands.  “Where are my fucking goods?”  
   
“It’s actually a Quetzalcoatlus,” Adam corrects pleasantly. “Pterodactyl is a globalized term.  The proper term is pterosaurs – meaning ‘Winged lizard’.  While pterosaurs existed from the late Triassic period to the late cretaceous period, the Quetzalcoatlus only lived during the late cretaceous period. They existed between 100 and 66 Magaannus years ago-”  
   
“I don’t care about the fucking dinosaur.”  Nigel says, voice rising minutely as he tries to wrap his head around the kid throwing jargon his way.  
   
“They weren’t dinosaurs,” Adam corrects again, pleased to have found a subject he can latch onto and discuss with the man.  “Dinosaur is the term used for the descendants of the Saurischian and Ornithischia.  Their group doesn’t include pterosaurs which were a part of the pterosauria clan.”  
   
Nigel stares for a long hard second at the man spouting dino facts, and tries to wrap his head around what the hell is happening.  Nothing is going to plan, not even this damn conversation.   
   
“I don’t want to hear about the dinosaurs or pter-whatever.” He lifts the doll to Adam’s face, holding it for him to see the chunk of concrete that had been tucked into its stuffing.  “I want to know how you got this fucking doll.”  
   
“Are you upset?”  
   
Adam’s breath comes a little more quickly, sight focused away from the man who keeps interrupting him. His feet shift, fingers clenching and unclenching as he as he tries to sort out what he’s doing wrong. The discussion seemed to have been going well. Why is this always so hard for him?  
   
“Are you fucking with me right now?”  Nigel asks seriously. He was already itching to break skulls and now this kid is playing games with him?  Is he fucking suicidal?  
   
“No,” Adam says in confusion. He is definitely missing a social cue here. Maybe a metaphor? Better to just clarify right away: “We haven’t entered any form of sexual relations at all.”   
   
He swallows hard, frustration making him anxious. He wishes he could just understand what this man wants from him.  
   
Nigel’s eyes widen in surprise, a low breathy chuckle leaving the man, and Adam chances a glance at his face.  The man is definitely laughing.  Had he told a joke and missed it?  Was there a double meaning here that he hadn’t understood?  
   
Nigel abruptly changes his tack, grabbing Adam by the arm, thumb digging into his bicep hard enough to hurt: “You think you’re being funny with me? I want to know who the fuck gave you that doll, and where I can fucking find them.  I want to know now.”  
   
“He didn’t tell me his name,” Adam tries again with some irritation, wishing he could supply this man with what he needs so he’ll go away. “He told me he was waiting for a friend, and asked me to stay and wait while he went to the bathroom.  Then he gave me the quetzalcoatlus and left.”   
  
Adam glances toward the washrooms.  The man had been gone for a while.  Perhaps he’s sick?  Diarrhea or a urinary infection would be uncomfortable and cause extended bathroom time.  
   
“Then let’s go to the fucking bathroom and you can point him out to me.”  
   
The man’s grip tightens further on Adam’s arm. It reminds him of the way he used to grip his father’s hand when he got nervous, if he wasn’t sure where to go or what to do with himself. Adam is aware that this man is upset. Perhaps he is also unsure and in need of guidance?  
   
“Okay,” Adam says, satisfied with his reasoning, and allowing the man squeeze his arm as he begins toward the washroom.  
   
Nigel is immediately thrown off by how easy this is, this kid, Adam, suddenly leading him toward the washrooms as though Nigel had flicked a switch with his direct instruction.  The nervous energy that had been obvious in the guy only moments before, left him the moment he had a task to focus on. Anyone else would have been shaking, running scared or looking for some kind of security to get away from Nigel, but not this kid.  He doesn’t even seem to register that Nigel’s grip on his arm is a threat, more like he is just happy to help.  
   
“Did you get a good look at him Adam?”  Nigel asks when it seems that the young man won’t fill the silence with nervous talk or questions. Geez, the kid doesn’t even seem to sense danger, just stolidly continues to lead Nigel on to his desired destination.  
   
“Yes.”  He hadn’t had a choice really, not with how close the man had been clutching at him.  
   
Nigel nods. At least there was that then. “Good. I’m going to need you to describe his sorry ass for me if we don’t find him in here.”  He finally lets go of Adam’s arm to shove the bathroom door open and push him inside.  
   
“I didn’t see his ass.”  
   
Ignoring the smart-ass answer, Nigel steps in behind him, herding Adam deeper into the washroom as he gives the place a quick look for his missing man.  
   
“Am, am I supposed to stay here and wait?” Adam asks when the man starts shoving stall doors open in search of his friend, or, maybe not his friend?  This doesn’t seem right to Adam, Nigel rudely opening stall doors. He’s glad the bathroom seems deserted; he would be mortified if they burst in on any stranger en situ.  
   
“If you can’t find him, you could ask the woman at the front desk to page him.  They could use the intercom system to request he come to the front desk.  Or call security to-”  
   
The man turns back to Adam at once, stalking toward him with shoulders squared and narrowed eyes. “No one else is getting involved in this.  This little shit show is between you, me, and Countryman.”  
   
“How am I involved?” Adam asks, realizing with a growing sense of panic that this won’t be ending with the trip to the bathroom. This man is not letting him go until they find his friend. Adam’s morning at the museum is looking like a total loss. “Is it because I waited with the quetzalcoatlus?”  
   
“Yeah, it’s because you’re his fucking bag man and one of you is trying to fuck me over.”  
   
Since the bathroom was empty, and the doors are close enough to the main entrance for a quick get away, Nigel is starting to believe that Countryman had decided to play a little game of cat and mouse with him.  
   
But in this game, Nigel is a very big, very pissed off cat and Countryman – it doesn’t fucking matter what he is, cause he’s dead either way  
  
“Come on Adam, we’re leaving and you’re going to help me find your boss.”  
   
OoOoO  
  
TBC  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my darlings~<3
> 
> The first chapter was so well received I'm posting the second one today instead of making you all wait until Monday, I hope you all enjoy!!!
> 
> Also thank you all for your good wishes and encouragement!!! I'll return to my usual responding to messages once I have my life back in order, internet time is short and precious these days. ;n; Sorry.
> 
> On with the story!!!
> 
> I own nothing.
> 
> Beta read by my amazing beta-reading gal diedofennui who has been absolutely amazing in helping me explore Adam. Thank you babe~<3 <3 <3

“He’s not my boss.  I work for Mr. Kleiber at Replay Ink.  I don’t know Charlie Countryman,” Adam says confused.  
   
The stranger is staring at his cell phone as he maneuvers Adam out of the bathroom and toward the front doors.    
   
“But you know his face,” Nigel points out, which is all he needs to know right now.  A name is good, but a face, he needs to know what the shit head looks like so he can track him down without killing every C. Countryman this side of New York.  “I need you to point him out to me.”  
    
Frowning, Adam looks back toward the exhibit he is missing due to unforeseeable events.  He will have to come again another day to see the new asteroid display.  He will have to take another day off of work, or be forced to come on a weekend with the crowd. He wrinkles his brow. There is no way he can manage a weekend this season, not with the swarm of tourists that came during the summer. It is uncomfortable enough to come during a weekday with all the working people milling about the city.   
    
Adam gathers his courage and turns to the man herding him toward the exit, looking steadily at the wall behind the man’s head.  
   
“The Earth and Space exhibit has a new display– they believe it’s a piece of the asteroid that caused the chain reaction destroying the dinosaurs.” His eyes chance a quick dart toward the strangers face, hoping he might understand. “C-can we see the exhibit before we look for Charlie?”    
   
At the very least, Adam wants to see the asteroid. He can come back and see the museum – the whole museum – another day, but the asteroid he needs to see today. This ridiculous situation will be a little bit easier to cope with if he can find the thing he came to the museum to see.   
   
“I don’t have time to look at a fucking piece of rock.  I need to find him now.”   
   
The longer he waits, the farther Countryman is going to make it with his fucking goods.  
   
“I bought my ticket and came to see the asteroid today,” Adam insists, finally becoming frustrated.  
   
Nigel gives Adam a look. It’s hard to tell if the kid is being a sarcastic little shit or if he’s actually serious.  His voice is still fairly monotone, more steadily reasoning than anything else.   
   
“I’ll buy you a new ticket.  You can come back whatever fucking day you want, later tonight even.”   
   
“There are too many people in the evenings. I took today off of work to see it.”  
   
Nigel stops, turning to look at the anxious man whose disappointment is focused on the doors they are so close to reaching.    
   
“You took the day off work to come to a museum?”    
  
It’s beyond him.  Nigel hasn’t worked many honest jobs in his life, the few he has were during his early teen years when he learned he just wasn’t a fucking people person, and even then he’d been skimming the register and tip jars.  
   
Adam nods in the affirmative, glancing back over his shoulder toward the exhibit he is going to miss.    
   
“There are too many people on the weekend.”  He explains, feeling like he’s repeating himself and hoping that the man will understand his point. “It’s easier for me to process with fewer people.  Otherwise I-I get overloaded.”   
   
This kid is getting harder and harder for Nigel to wrap his brain around.  There’s something wrong about him –no, not wrong, different – different in a way he hasn’t encountered before.    
   
“Alright,” he concedes after a moment.   
   
It’s only a five-minute detour, and the last thing he needs is his lead on Countryman making his life miserable and refusing to help because Nigel won’t let him see a fucking rock.    
   
“Let’s make a deal.”  He fingers the soft pack in his pocket and tries not to think about how close he is to a door and having a fucking smoke.  “We go back to the space part of the museum, you take a look at your space rock, and then you help me find Countryman.  No complaints.”  
   
It’s not exactly fair.  Adam hasn’t done anything to deserve having his time at the museum cut short and his day taken from him.  The stranger is getting the better end of this bargain in every way.  Still, it does allow for him to both help the man find his friend and see the exhibit he came for.   
   
“Okay,” he agrees, it isn’t often that Adam’s help is needed in social situations. His attention usually only sought out by co-workers requiring technical help on the job. This man needs him, and there is a sense of satisfaction in that.  Plus, now he’ll have company; something he’s been lacking since the death of his father.   
   
Adams watches the man at the corner of his vision for a long second, milling things over in his mind. This was one of those social situations he usually avoided, not with an intrinsic desire to avoid company, but because of a general inability to cope with social stressors. He suddenly realized that this situation could lead to something new, to something that he both lacked and desired: This man could be Adam’s friend.  
   
The thought makes him nervous, another aspect of the whole situation that he’d never been good at, but at the very least he can try.    
   
“What’s your name?” he asks, the most basic question to initiating any friendship – knowing each other’s names.  It’s simple, something that Adam can comfortably manage and build from.  
   
“Nigel.”   
   
Seemingly satisfied with his answer, the kid turns to lead them back toward the exhibit. His voice still seems oddly flat, but he looks less disappointed, more at ease now that he will see his space rock. This kid, he’s something else.  Nigel has always prided himself on his ability to read people.  It’s a skill people in his line of business either have or die trying to learn. Nigel is far from dead, and high enough on the totem pole to be considered a big fish. But as far as a read on this guy?...Adam is giving him shit.  Shit and a headache.   
   
“Do you have an interest in space, Nigel?” Adam asks, taking the next step toward conversation as he works to progress their relationship.  His steps quicken as they come closer to the large exhibit hall with its numerous displays of stars and galaxies painted on the walls. He is relieved to be meeting today’s goal of seeing the asteroid. It would have frustrated him immensely to have been so close, and to miss it despite. Now, back on track, he allows his excitement to show in his body as they walk.  
    
Nigel glances around at the star charts.  He’s always liked stars, something to look at beside dead bodies when he’s sitting on the roof at night enjoying a cigarette.  He doesn’t bother with researching the balls of glowing fire that watch him back, as far as he’s concerned, not all beauty needs to be picked apart by science.  Staring at the long-winded label beneath the photo of a galaxy a few million light-years away, Nigel decides he’s still right about the universe not requiring an explanation.     
   
“I like constellations,” he finally answers.   
   
He’d like a fucking cigarette more.  
    
“Do you?”  Adam brightens, excitement creeping into his voice now at the mutual topic opening between them.  “Which ones are your favorites?”  
   
Nigel looks toward the fancy sign exclaiming some new piece of rock.   
   
“Your asteroid is that way,” he says nodding in the direction of the object they’d doubled back for.    
   
If he didn’t have so much faith that he was going to catch Countryman and have him choking on lead by the days end, Nigel might have been annoyed about Adam’s insistence on a ten minute detour.  As it was, he saw this more as an irritating side trip, like stopping for gas when all you want is to get to the airport and catch your damn flight.  
   
“The data is not conclusive, but they believe that based on the shocked quartz, a gravity anomaly, tektites and estimated time of impact, that this could be the asteroid that caused the mass extinction.  There has been extensive debate concerning whether it should be in included in the prehistoric exhibit or the space and earth exhibit.  The arguments had been that-”  
   
“Adam,” Nigel interrupts, far more gently than he might have any other irritating creature he didn’t need to ID Gabi’s double-crossing soon to be dead cousin.  “I don’t give a shit,” he says, turning a tooth baring smile that would have most men pissing their pants to the strange boy who meets him with a wide smile of his own.  It is sweet, open, and entirely innocent.   
  
It has something turning in Nigel’s chest, and the menacing grin melting from his face.   
   
“Oh, okay. Um, would you like to discuss more about the constellations?” Adam offers, looking to keep conversation with his new social guest.  He likes having company so far, it’s nice, this man is not as overwhelming as the other one had been.  Though Adam would rather they spend more time in the museum than go out searching for Mr. Countryman, this isn’t so bad.  
  
“We could discuss the starts of Orion’s belt for example. Did you know that the star Alnilam is a blue-white supergiant?  It’s the fourth brightest star in the constellation Orion and one of the fifty-eight stars used for celestial navigation.”   
   
“No,” Nigel replies, patience wearing thin.  He’s never been a patient man. Adam should be counting his lucky stars that he’s gotten this much tolerance out of him.     
   
The nearly childish smile falls from Adam’s face, the enthusiasm that had colored his voice fading as he turns back to the broken piece of rock and reads the paragraphs written beneath.   
    
“Do we need to go find Mr. Countryman now?” he offers. He desperately wants to see more of the exhibit, and it doesn’t seem quite fair that Nigel already wants to leave, but even Adam can tell that the man is becoming impatient.   
   
“Yes, we do.” A pang of guilt, something Nigel doesn’t often experience, squeezes in his chest as he watches Adam’s obvious disappointment. Fuck this day.    
   
“Look, let’s go find Countryman, and when we’re done, if there’s time we’ll come back and you can look at all the space rocks you want.”  He watches a small smile tug at the kid’s full lips as he glances uncertainly in Nigel’s direction.   
    
“You’ll come back with me?” Adam asks, liking the idea of continued company. The evening crowd might not be so difficult to handle if he has someone else to focus on and keep him company.  
   
“Sure. You help me find Countryman, and I’ll waste an afternoon at the museum with you.”  
    
“No.”  
    
It takes Nigel a second to register Adam’s refusal after having just been excited at the prospect of their return. “Excuse me?”  He’s not interested in playing fucking games with him.  “Did you just tell me fucking no?”  
   
“I don’t want your company if it’s a waste of your time.”    
   
As much as Adam would enjoy having another person around to discuss interesting topics and look at the exhibits, he has no desire to be a bother to anyone.  If his company is a burden on this man, than he doesn’t want him coming along.  Adam will enjoy his stars and fossils alone.   
   
Nigel wets his lips, debating how smart this kid really is. “You take everything fucking literally don’t you?”  Hands in his pockets, he fingers the pack of smokes he’s desperately craving.  
   
“Oh. Yes, usually,” Adam says after a moment, realizing that ‘waste of time’ must have been an expression and not Nigel’s genuine intention.  At least this man is clever, he considers, Nigel picking up on Adam’s differences in perception on his own, not needing a textbook definition of Aspergers to notice them.    
   
“I don’t generally recognize sarcasm,” Adam continues, “…if that was your intention.” He is curious, wondering if perhaps Nigel is more interested in spending the afternoon together than his words suggest.  
   
That sure as shit explains a lot, Nigel thinks to himself, beginning to recognize the patterns in their odd exchanges of the past 20 minutes.  He hums his understanding and loops an arm around the younger man’s shoulder, turning to lead him out of the space exhibit and back toward the front doors.  It’s time for them to do what he wants to do.  And what he wants is to find Charlie and make him eat his shoe.    
   
“It would be my pleasure to accompany you to the space exhibit after we find Countryman,” he offers.  
   
“I’m not a waste of time?”  
   
“You’re not a waste of time,” he reassures, all too happy to step out of the building and into sunshine.  He has a smoke from his pocket before they are out the doors, slipping the filter between his lips and lighting up with his zippo as soon as the sun hits them.  
   
Adam wrinkles his nose at the cloying smell of cigarette smoke, turning away from the silver wisps that catch in the wind.  “Where are we going?” he asks as Nigel leads them away from the museum and down the sidewalk. There are a number of cars parked along the curb, parking meters blinking down their count for another quarter.   
   
“We’re going to swing by my place,” Nigel tells him, turning again to bring them down a side street, one more quiet, with less people and more free meters. “I need to have a word with my wife about Charlie.”  
   
Adam nods, climbing into a car when Nigel opens the passenger door for him. “Is she friends with him?”  
   
“He’s her cousin,” Nigel says, getting into the driver’s side and starting the engine.   A quick shoulder check and he pulls out, turning onto the main street to drive toward his current place of residence.    
   
Adam fidgets in the warm car. The air conditioning hasn’t had enough time to cool the air yet; it’s blowing hot on his face and legs. The whole interior stinks of cigarettes, and the one in Nigel’s mouth makes his eyes water and burn.  
   
“Please put that out,” he asks.   
  
Nigel takes another deep breath of nicotine and looks at his company, watches Adam tightly splay his fingers and shift in the seat, nose wrinkling at the smell.  “Fuck this is gonna be a long day,” he growls under his breath, flipping off the air conditioning, and rolling down his window, blowing smoke out into the streets instead. “Better?”  
   
“Yes, thank you.”  Adam follows his example, rolling down his own window to let the hot summer air blow him cool and chase away the smell of smoke.  This is better; enjoyable.  Car rides are interesting when he is able to take them with a friend.  He certainly doesn’t take cabs, finding they make him more nervous than the subway –the drivers always want to make conversation – but he does enjoy going out for rides with Harlan when they’re offered, and now he can have them with Nigel too.  “Is your wife aesthetically pleasing?”  
    
Nigel snorts, caught off guard again, and gives the kid a disbelieving look that Adam neither seems to fucking notice or care about. Who the hell had he picked up?  “You think I’d marry I dog?”  
   
Adam’s brow creases at the thought, “That’s illegal.”  He wonders if it’s a joke.  
   
Nigel stops himself from clocking him, can feel his nerves fraying every moment he’s with this guy. He takes another breath of tobacco, blowing a stream of silver smoke out the window and considers their miscommunication issue. “Okay, the literal thing… umm…asking ‘you think I’d marry a dog’ is like asking ‘you think I’d marry someone who’s ugly,’” he explains.   
   
“Oh.”  Adam supposes he could see his point. Dogs are sexually unappealing, or at least they are supposed to be.  He can see how referring to someone as a dog could reflect their unattractive appearance, especially if that person didn’t like dogs.   
   
But that still doesn’t answer Adam’s question.  “I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking.”  
   
On some level, it’s almost cute, on a completely different level it makes Nigel want to pull over and choke him.  “My darling Gabi is the most beautiful woman in the world.”  He reaches into his back pocket to slip out a wallet.  He flips it open to a thin plastic sleeve meant for credit cards, a picture of his wife slipped safely inside.  He’d taken the shot on his cellphone one morning when he’d caught her reading the newspaper with a cigarette between her fingers and coffee in hand.  It was candid, his favorite photo of her outside of a shot of her in a dress with Nigel dipping her back far enough her veil had pooled on the rental hall floor.  
  
“She looks nice,” Adam agrees.  She is attractive with her bright red hair and pale skin. He isn’t sure she is the most beautiful woman in the world, but she is attractive.  
   
“She looks gorgeous,” Nigel corrects. He pulls the car to a stop outside his apartment and pops the door. “Come on.”    
   
He might have left the kid to wait if he didn’t think there was a possibility of him wandering away, either to escape or just because Nigel couldn’t fucking predict him enough to know if he’d get bored and wander.  
   
Adam follows, walking up the outside steps to a hall that leads to the unit’s front door. It’s interesting; different from his own apartment.  Nigel opens the door and steps inside without holding it for Adam, but he didn’t close the door and Nigel had told him to come, so Adam takes it as an unspoken invitation to enter and hopes he’s right.  
   
The apartment is small, a semi-bachelor with the bedroom connecting to the kitchen and no living room.  An assortment of pillows propped against the bed’s headboard look to act as a large lounge couch for Nigel and his wife to lean on and watch the TV mounted on the wall.  
   
“Gabi,” Nigel calls out, stubbing his cigarette in an ashtray by the sink.  “Darling we need to have a talk about your fucking cousin.” See if she can reason with the sorry fuck before Nigel takes his ire out of him with a pound of flesh.  The only thing saving this piss lick is his relation to Gabi.   
   
Adam stands by the entry, watching as Nigel walks through his home – shoes still on – and knocks gently on the bathroom door, slipping it open when no sound is heard from the other side. “What a fucking time to be out.”  He reaches into his pockets and retrieves two cellphones, one he drops into a waste bin as he punches numbers into the other.   
   
“She left a note,” Adam informs him, his wandering gaze settling on a piece of paper that seems to have slipped from the counter, most likely when they’d opened the door.  Adam bends to pick it up as Nigel finds his wife’s forgotten phone on the counter.  
   
 “What a shit day.” Taking the paper from Adam he reads it. “The fuck?”  He read it again – staring at the quickly jotted words in soft loopy writing, trying to process their meaning.  “She left.”  He takes a step forward, stopping when he feels a bump beneath his shoe, and bends, picking up the fallen rings – wedding and engagement.  “She fucking left!”   
   
Adam thinks that this is fairly obvious.  “Did she say when she would be back?” That would be more useful than knowing that she left, they’d already established that the apartment was empty and too small to hide in.   
   
“No not left, Adam, left – she fucking left me.”  He kicks the counter, boot hitting the wooden door hard enough to make dishes rattle.  “Charlie fucking Countryman!”   
   
He’d been played. Played hard, and by his own fucking wife no less.  He throws the rings, lets them bounce against cabinets and scatter across the floor.  
    
A spew of foreign words Adam can’t even begin to guess at fly from Nigel as he put his fist through the wall. Adam tenses, muscles rigid as he watches the man’s wrath unfold, destruction and violence unleashed around him.  He can’t just leave though; he doesn’t know where he is.  He needs Nigel to take him back to the museum so he can find his way home.  Picking up the note that has fallen again, he reads the scrawl.  “I’m leaving.”   
    
Even with the note, Adam is still missing something, the whole situation a puzzle he’s becoming frustrated with.  “I don’t understand.” he admits, finding himself frustrated once again with the happenings around him.   
   
“There’s nothing to understand Adam, my wife left me for that squeaking cunt Countryman!” He grabs the nearest object – a lamp – and hurls across the room.  “The money.”  He could laugh really, oh how cleaver his wife – his darling Gabi – had been.  “She’s planned this whole fucking thing so fucking well.”   
   
Her poor cousin was out on his ass, desperate for cash and willing to take any kind of work he could get to support him and his girlfriend.  Gabi had asked Nigel if he could spare some work, give a smuggling job he’d spent months lining up to her cousin, to give the kid a fucking break.  Charlie was in Romania, close enough to Bucharest for his overseas partner Darko to give him the goods, to save Nigel the two way trip and bottle of lube.  
   
He’d been paid up front for the smuggling job.  Darko gave him cash with his plane ticket and a condom full of D-grade carats to stuff up his ass.   
  
Nigel had brought Gabi’s boyfriend to America and as good as hand-delivered him to her, along with a paycheck fat enough to get them half-way across America and hold up comfortably in hotels and rentals for weeks.  
   
Comfortable only until Gabi found a fucking buyer for the ice he’d transported – nearly half a million in diamonds – then they’d be fucking set.  
   
He wanted to put another hole in the wall.   
   
Adam swallows some of the tightness from his throat. “Why did she leave you?” he asks, looking at Nigel’s fist.  His knuckles are red from punching the wall, hand still clenched in anger.  
   
“I don’t have any fucking idea,” he says with more calm than he feels.  He can’t think of any reason why. He’s a good husband:  loyal, providing, engaging.  He’s always made time for her, kept her out of his business and harm’s way.  He can’t think of fucking why. “But I’m going to find out.”  
   
And then someone was going to die.  
   
Adam nods, looking at the note and its two simple words. He has a choice to make.  There would be the right choice and the wrong choice, and both would have consequences he would question himself about forever after, wondering what each outcome could have been if he’d taken the opposite road.  One would open opportunities for him, while the other would close them.   
   
One would let him move forward, while one would keep him behind. Behind where no one understood him, and Adam was left completely alone.    
   
“W-we should probably go,” he says, making his decision aloud before he can lose the nerve and hate himself for it later.  
   
“What?” Nigel asks, turning to the strange boy. “We should probably go?”  He’s hoping for elaboration, and instead he receives an affirmative nod. “What do you mean we?”  
   
“You asked me to help you find Charlie,” Adam says, thinking again about what it is he was about to offer. “I-I can help you find him and your wife.”  
   
Eyes narrows, Nigel licks his lips and considers the kid, waiting for the catch. “Yeah?  How the fuck do you plan on doing that?”   
   
Adam shifts, anxious in his movements.  
   
“I can help you find their digital footprint and follow their trail that way.” It isn’t legal, he knows that, he knows it’s wrong and it’s making his heart hammer in his chest to think about hacking bank accounts and businesses, looking for ID scans and purchases.  But Nigel needs his help, he’d asked for it and Adam had agreed.  This is the decision that will bring him forward instead of back.  
  
“You can do that?”  He gives the kid a once over, curious what angle he might have, what the fuck he can gain from helping someone like Nigel with anything.   
  
“Mmhm,” he nods, sight flicking between Nigel’s shoulder and the floor.  Nigel wasn’t trying to force eye contact with him the way most people did, by leaning into his line of sight and making him meet their eyes.  Nigel is letting Adam be Adam, and it’s a welcome reprieve.  It makes him want to cultivate their relationship even more.  
   
“Why?”  
   
“I went to school fo-”  
   
“Not why can you do it, why would you help me?”  The answer to which would be a fuck load more interesting than his educational credentials.  
   
Adam’s eyes flick to meet Nigel’s for a half-second before dancing away again, focusing on something else in the room and staying steady. “You asked me for help.”  
   
“That doesn’t mean you have to do it, Adam.  You can draw me a picture of Countryman and walk away.”  Now that his wife is with the bastard he can find Countryman by finding her.  “You’re not getting anything out of this.”  
   
“That’s not true,” Adam argues, watching the way Gabi’s engagement ring catches the light from the window to paint small dots on the kitchen floor.  “I’m enjoying your company, and you said we could go to the museum when we are done.”  He shuffles some, hoped he is not reading this wrong.  “This is what friends do.  Help each other…I want us to be friends.”  
  
“You want to be my friend?”  Nigel decides that he officially has no survival instinct.  Most people – people who weren’t like him, people who were normal like Adam – would have turned tail and run after meeting Nigel, never mind following him home to watching him break the damn wall.  They wouldn’t be pursuing him as a goddamn friend.  
   
Adam nods, fingers fisting tight and then loose as he waits for Nigel’s decision, hoping for a yes, hoping that he’s read this right and can have some companionship.  
   
“I’m not the kind of guy you wanna be friends with,” Nigel warns gently. It’s not often that he would offer a warning, usually willing to play the chump and just take what he needs, until they have nothing left but dirt and empty pockets – but this kid, this strange and naive kid, it doesn’t feel right to play him.  He’s not just taking Nigel for a ride - Adam is honestly offering him help and looking for a friendship that, generally, Nigel can’t offer.  Nigel doesn’t have friends – at least not many.  Darko was an exception, as was Gabi up to a few minutes ago.  
   
“Not many people want to be friends with me either,” Adam says. He is “too difficult” to be around, “too frustrating” to deal with because he isn’t neurotypical.  People are unwilling to put forth the effort to understand him, it’s easier for them to decide Adam’s an idiot and ignore him or walk away than to try to understand.  
   
“Other people are fucking idiots,” Nigel says, watching the hurt play across Adam’s brow, small and nearly unnoticeable.  This kid has feelings – Nigel can read them the more he watches him – he just doesn’t display them the way Nigel does. It could have been a foreign language, seeing the kid work through his emotions.  
  
It explains why Adam had such a hard time understanding what it was Nigel wanted from him, why he’d been so lost at the museum, why he wasn’t sure what to do with Nigel when he radiated anger like a fucking forest fire.  Adam isn’t reading him emotionally.  He’s looking for cues, like a play script, and just trying to play his part.  
   
It is even more reason why he shouldn’t be dragged into Nigel’s chaotic underworld.   
   
“Fine, but you don’t have to be my friend any longer than you want to,” he clarifies, giving the kid an out. He seems determined enough that he might actually stick around if Nigel tried to make him leave. “I won’t hold it against you when you have to go.”   
   
“I do have work in the morning,” Adam admits. He’ll have to leave for that.  
   
“I mean when you have to walk away from me and this relationship.”  Strangest conversation of his life.  
   
“I don’t want to.” And he hopes Nigel won’t make him.  It’s not often he is given the chance to do something like this, and somehow he is handling it well. And Nigel is handling him well.  “I-I’d like to have you over for dinner, and to visit the museum, and to go to the park together. I want to help you find Charlie and Gabi so we can do these things.”  
   
This. This is not the sort of shit Nigel needs right now, not with a goodbye note from his wife and a trade gone so far south they’ll be finding it in goddamn China.  This isn’t what he fucking needs… but, it is a distraction that he can appreciate. It gives him something to focus on beyond the ache Gabi has left behind.    
   
“Let’s wait and see how this all plays out, you might not want me sticking around once you get to know me.”  
   
“I do.”   
   
Nigel just doesn’t understand how big this is for him, what it means for him to climb into another man’s car, to go to his house and help him find someone important to him, he doesn’t understand what Adam has managed to achieve today – very few do.  
   
Nigel can see that this disagreement will lead them nowhere. “Fine, whatever.”  He’ll tell Adam to go when he can’t take it anymore, make the kid leave. “Tell me what you need to find Charlie Countryman and my dar – and Gabi.”  
   
“I need to go home to help you. I need a computer to run the appropriate searches and programs and-” he swallows hard, thinking again of what he is about to do, the laws they are about to break – “hacks.”   
   
Nigel can’t see this kid hacking into anything, no matter how fucking smart he thinks he is.  “You’re going to hack a government account, banks, whatever, and hunt these two down for me?”  
   
Adam shifts again, nodding.  “Yeah.”  
   
If it’s true, than Adam, this whole situation, is too good to be true.  Then again, he might just be pulling his leg about the whole computer understanding bullshit.  “Can you do it from here?”  He’d rather keep as much of this shit close to home as he can, too much has already gotten away from him, and the idea of losing his grasp on even more is nearly enough to give him a nervous tick.  “I’ll get you a laptop we can trash, and destroy the tracking on once you’re done.  No digital footprints back to us.”  
   
Adam looks around the small strange apartment.  It is too much in one day.  “No, you’ll have to come to my home.  But you can purchase the computer so the evidence can be eliminated.”  He knows the specs he will require for the search types, and how to create and run the programs he will need to scramble his IP address, fabricating his location in a foreign country so they won’t be tracked.   
   
Grinding his teeth, Nigel reminds himself that Adam is doing this for him as a favor, nothing asked in return but a day at the fucking museum.  “Alright, we’ll take this to your place.”  
   
Pleased with the negotiation, even if it means a day of work and searches ahead of him, Adam smiles at his soon to be house guest and takes a seat at the small squat table in the kitchen.  
   
Nigel stares.  “What are you doing?”  
   
“Waiting for you to pack.” He looks around the room again, reads the spines of the books that are in English and wondered about the many that are not.   
   
A long, exhausting moment passes as Nigel watches Adam read his bookshelf.  He’s lost somewhere between disbelief and wonderment at this kid.   
   
Relenting with a sigh, he walks to his side of the dresser and throws open the drawer, grabbing fists full of socks, shirts and underwear to stuff into a cavilier bag.  “This is going to be a long fucking day.”  
   
OoOoO  
   
TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading~<3
> 
> Your kudos are jumping on Nigel's bed while your comments are burning Gabi's things. C:


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my God I feel like I've been gone forever. 
> 
> I got sick with mono, today is my first day back up and I haven't eaten solids in over a week. Still living without internet and I move in 4-7 days, life's been busy. C;
> 
> So this update comes to you from my phone. If you see any screaming mistakes it's entirely my falt and in thanks to the limited capability of my Samsung. 
> 
> Thank you all for your beautiful comments for my last chapter. I read them while I was sick and they made me very happy ~♡♡♡
> 
> Enjoy the update, I'll try to get 04 posted for you all much sooner! 
> 
> I own nothing! 
> 
> Beta read by Diedofennui (thank you dear~♡♡♡)

Nigel drove to Adam’s apartment – a nicer place, in a better neighborhood than he’d lived with Gabi.  Watching the houses fly past with their well-maintained paint and trees lined fences, it had him thinking before he could snub out the thought – maybe this was part of the reason Gabi left him?

Maybe this whole mess was something he could have fixed with a little less hiding, a little more money to make her happy…

Clenching his teeth, he shakes the thoughts of Gabi and failure from his mind as he pulls into visitor parking, killing the engine.

He would deal with his emotions later, preferably when he has a face to carve them into.  Same with the car, visitor parking would work for now. He’d figure out what to do if his stay became anything longer than a few short days.  The car or the landlord, whichever Nigel was in the mood to deal with when the time came to call a tow truck or break teeth.

He gets out of the car, popping the trunk and grabbing a box, looking from manicured shrubbery to the tidy brick building of Adam’s apartment.

“Shit, this is nice,” he admits, carrying the Best Buy box up two flights of stairs to Adam’s unit.

Nigel had lived in nice before, when he’d been younger and cared more about experiences and flash than freedom and keeping a low profile.  He’d also lived in hovels – wishing for more than a piss pot while waiting out long dry spells of no deals or jobs.  That had been in the beginning, before he’d got his own irons in the fire and started running his own show.  Now he’s good, business is good, and options are open to him.  He lives where he likes.

Of course he also has to consider the likelihood of a buyer following him home and shooting up the place. Class is worth shit if it means living somewhere you have to worry about the locks on your windows and doors.  It means that Nigel requires some distance between work and home, and distance doesn’t always situate home in the greatest places.

But regardless of where Nigel sleeps at night – a fancy condo or a shack – he always follows the same single rule:  There’s nothing he can’t leave behind.

With the exception of Gabi and her cello, it had always rung true. He could abandon the TV, bed, leather furniture, autographed DVD’s – none of it mattered in the long run.  So long as he had his freedom, everything was replaceable.

As soon as Nigel lost that freedom – he’d lose everything else along with it.

Not that freedom meant much if he doesn’t have someone to share it with.

Pain and emptiness pierce his chest and he scans the room for a new distraction, glancing around the vast apartment that Adam leads them into.  

“You live alone?”  The apartment is more than twice the size of his own, far too big for just one person.  Nigel can’t imagine that Adam is paid enough to cover the mortgage for a place of this size, in this area, by himself...

“I do now,” he says nonchalant. “My father left for Queens last month.”  He turns a strained sort of smile toward Nigel, as though waiting for some reaction.

Whatever Adam’s expecting  Nigel doesn’t give, because the smile falters. Nigel is just satisfied that the house will contain only the two of them – even if only for a short time – the fewer bodies floating around the better. “When’s he gonna be back?”

“He not coming back. Harlan say’s that Queens is where everyone goes when they die, because they can’t tell the difference.”

Nigel narrows his eyes. Grieving is foreign territory for him; he’s used to putting people into the ground, not dealing with the consequences, he leaves their loved ones to deal with the broken pieces.  He hasn’t dealt with mourning a death since his grandmother, and given that his ass had been tossed out not two months later, that particular family activity had ended in a shirtstorm.  

“Fuck,” he finally manages, “sorry for your loss.” He’s not sure if he’s supposed to laugh at the bad joke or give the kid a pat on the back, so instead he just sets the box on the table and hopes whatever the fuck this is will pass.

"Harlan said it was a joke,” Adam clarifies, smile fading away as he turns his attention to the box containing his new computer and begins picking back the tape on the corners. He extricates the various components and manuals, setting the contents to the side, and takes a moment to sort the recyclables and dispose of each accordingly, something most people would have left until after they’d finished playing with their new toy.

A peg of guilt twists Nigel’s chest as he watches the disappointment of Adam’s failed attempt at humor return the kid’s face to neutral. He just doesn’t wear his emotions the way most people do, the way Nigel does.  Adam’s voice radiates emotion only when he’s talking about fucking space or some other strange subject that he can latch onto with vigor and passion.  Maybe it’s his own emotional upheaval making him soft, but he doesn’t want to see the kid lose his little bit of life to Nigel’s own shit mood.  

“It was funny,” he reassures, minutes after the moment has already past. He takes a seat at the table, watching Adam move about his kitchen, setting garbage in the bin, cardboard into the recyclables, a glass of water for each of them at the table. His space finally to his liking, Adam sits to join Nigel and begins preparing his new hardware.  

“People don’t laugh at every joke,” Nigel prompts again.

This seems to perk the kid up a little, a quiet nod of understanding and a glance in Nigel’s direction that almost meets his eyes. Nigel is beginning to understand just how rare eye contact with Adam is;  something to be earned, maybe even coveted.

It’s nearly tempting to stay around just to try to earn such a gift.

“You brought a bag,” Adam says, plugging in the laptop and powering it up.

“I assumed I’d be crashing here for a couple of days while you track Gabi and Countryman.”  

He’d left his clothes in the trunk for now, along with his gun. If this was quick he wouldn’t need to bother bringing the bag inside, if it went a little longer, he’d have the change of clothes with him just in case.  Either way he wasn’t leaving until the job was done.

“That alright?”

Adam nods. "You should bring it inside. Guests don't leave their bags in the car." He hasn’t had a house guest on his own before. It will be a new experience for him, one he hopes won’t overwhelm him when he needs some time alone.  He considers that he can always go to his room, close the door and give himself some space if the constant presence of Nigel became too much.

But then where will Nigel go?  What will he do while Adam recovers in his room? Is he is supposed to entertain a guest for the entirety of their visit? Will Nigel think he is being rude?  Adam begins to fidget and forces the thoughts from his mind for now, moves his focus out of his own head and back to the screen.

He decides not to bother with a backup disc; they won’t be keeping the computer for long.  He’ll write his codes, hack the necessary sites, run his programs and wait.  Eventually – unless they the runaway pair have  fake ID’s and passports – something will turn up.  At some point their cash on hand will run out and they’ll be forced to use a credit card or existing account in order to keep going.

There’s also licence plate scans to consider. He can likely hack the red light cams posted all over the city, but that would be a lot of work with minimal chance of success.  As long as they don’t speed or run a red, Adam will be depending on the digital footprint and the pair’s assumption that Nigel can’t track them.

“Do you have a spare room or am I taking the couch?”  Nigel asks, watching as Adam disappears into a virtual world that leaves no room for interaction.  He is entirely focused; attention brought to a laser focus on his screen.  Nigel takes a look over Adam’s shoulder at the quick tapping of his fingers on the keyboard, multiple windows already open on screen, and decided that this – all of it – is way over his head.

It also means that Nigel’s distraction from his runaway wife is otherwise occupied, and the thoughts are already creeping back to the forefront of his mind.

Thoughts of Gabi. Questions of why.

He fingers the wedding band still on his hand: a plain gold, ten carat band in a comfort cut or some shit.  He’d only been able to afford ten K at the time, but he’d always thought she was worth more. In the end all they’d really cared about was getting the damn things on and knowing she was his and he was hers.

Marriage, as far as Nigel’s concerned, is a two-way street.  Gabi’s not a thing, and he never thought of her as one, not something to be owned like an object, but all the same she was his.  Just the same, he was hers. They were exclusive save for a wandering eye.

For all his faults – and there are many – Nigel doesn’t cheat, never has, not where it counts anyway.  It was the only thing he’d ever asked for from her: “Me and only me.”

So why had she done it?  Why the fuck had she turned to another man?  Why the fuck had she done it like this?

He knew the answer, knew it like the weight of a Trovok in his hand.

She did it because she knew he would never let her go.

_Possessive._

But that didn’t really answer the why.  He needed to know what he’d done to push her away.  When had it started?  Why the fuck hadn’t she said something to him?

Nigel is a complicated man, always has been, but he hadn’t been complicated when it came to Gabi, he would have moved heaven and earth for her.

So why leave?

“Fuck.”  

He rubs his eyes, tired from a late night and early day, too much stress during a pick up that couldn’t have gone more horrifically wrong.  Just like he’d thought it would.  

“I’m getting some air,” he tells Adam, whose eyes are still focused on the screen, brows creased and fingers flying.  “I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Okay,” Adam finally answers, realizing that Nigel is waiting for a response. He’s on a government website now, something big and official, typing codes and copying and pasting jargon that makes Nigel’s eyes cross trying to read it.

He rifles through the kitchen drawers until he finds a pen, writing his name and number on a piece of paper towel and setting it by Adam’s side before taking his leave.  He’ll go for a walk, have a fucking smoke and think. He doesn’t have much of a fucking choice on the matter anyway.

He also has a buyer he needs to placate.

Lighting up and wishing it was something stronger, maybe 7% and cut with a razor, Nigel draws a long slow breath of nicotine and walks.  He could take the car, drive fast enough to make Bucharest seem slow, let the sound of chasing sirens stroke his ego. But it would bring more attention than he needs, especially while he’s looking for Gabi.  She’ll know how to hide, know to watch for hints of Nigel’s hand on the news, and keep the same close eye on their accounts that he will.  She’ll be looking to see where he is to avoid his trail the same way he’ll be hunting for hers.

It means he’ll be living off cash for a while – just like she will.

He clenches his fist and wishes for someone to hit, bone and flesh always more satisfying than metal and brick.

Instead, he walks into the first phone shop he sees and buys a new burner, paid for in cash and ready to use.   Stepping back out into the heat minutes later – the sun higher in the sky and beating down enough to have his bowler shirt sticking to his back – he lights a fresh smoke and calls an old, familiar number.

“What?” the voice answers, sounding both occupied and uninterested.

Nigel grins. “Get your face out of her fucking tits and find a fucking computer.” He knows exactly what he’s interrupting, most likely a lap dance of some kind, no actual fucking of the girls employed at the club.  He’s a businessman after all, he knows where they’ve been.

“Nigel,” the voice annoyed, but pleasantly so. “I was wondering when you’d call.  Did the shithead fuck up?”

“He took off with Gabi.”

Silence fills the line, disbelief at the admission.

Nigel offers more into the void: “She’d set me up from the beginning. He kept the diamonds and the cash and they’re running.”  

Nigel hadn’t checked their mattress for the reserves they usually kept stuffed underneath because he knew he didn’t have to.  Gabi would have packed that with her fucking bras before taking off.

“Shit.” Nigel could hear him moving now, shooing the girls away and walking away from the low music of a private booth, through the louder volume of the public area, and finally toward the silence at the back, his office. “She called me an hour ago looking for a transfer.”  

Nigel could almost laugh. When it rains it fucking pours.

“How much?”

“Too fucking much.”

“That’s not a number Darko.”  

He spots an ATM on the street corner and fishes out his wallet, pausing when he flips to the picture of early morning beauty and betrayal.  He grabs his debit card and shoves the leather back in his pocket.

The account for Roland Simms – his most recent fake ID – flashes open with the press of a few numbers and he punches the screen of glowing zero’s that shines brightly from his account.  

“She cleaned me out.”

He curses, pulling the card from the atm and stuffing it into his pocket.

“Ten grand, she said you needed it for a car and already burned through the reserves you’d had.  I thought maybe you’d fallen back on the snow.”

Nigel hadn’t done coke in years.  It fucked with him too much, too addictive and fucking expensive.  He saw one too many men fall to ruins from it and turned himself onto AA to get off before it buried him too. And Gabi had managed to play that old card against him, taking him for everything that he had, clever cunt.  

“You just bought her a fucking car.”

One paid for with cash and licensed specifically to her or Charlie. Now they wouldn’t be able to track them by whatever Charlie used to drive, or by rental either.  If the new car was licenced legally and not just a licence plate switch, it would be done under a false name.  He’d taught her too fucking well for anything less.

She was about to disappear on him forever.

“You can do better than her Nigel, sh-”

“She’s my fucking wife Darko, my wife!”  He curses again, finishing his cigarette in a long drag that did nothing to ease his nerves.

 

“She left you Nigel.”

He laughs this time, a seething laugh, deep and angry.

“She might have fucking left but she’s still my wife and I’m her fucking husband.”  He looks at the wedding band still snug on his finger, gleaming in the sun. “Until fucking death do us fucking part.”

Silence fills the other end for a long moment. “What do you need me to do?”

Nigel smiles wide and wicked. “Arrange a funeral.”

OoOoO

 

TBC

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading ~♡
> 
> Your kudos are buying flowers for the funeral, your comments are taking bets on who it's for. C;
> 
> The writer is packing boxes with one hand and typing with the other.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my darlings~<3
> 
> I lost a lot of readers during my little sick leave, over half which is a LOT more than I'd been expecting to drop off the story, but what can you do? XD
> 
> Thank you everyone who has been keeping with this story and is still enjoying it, you're all wonderful and I've been greatly enjoying all of your comments~<3
> 
> I move in 4 days so this may be the last update until Monday, if I can squeeze another one in I will. C;
> 
> I own shit. 
> 
> Beta read by my fabulous friend Diedofennui, an amazing and talented woman who has agreed to waste her valuable time on me~<3 <3 <3

Nigel returns to Adam’s apartment several hours later with a second canvas bag and no car.  He dropped the vehicle in a lot near his own apartment, returning by cab. He no longer intends his stay with Adam to be short.  
  
“Adam?” he calls out, dropping both bags by the door and toeing off his shoes to search for him.   
  
He steps deeper into the unit, finding Adam where he’d left him, hunched over his new computer and reading code Nigel can’t begin to understand.    
  
“Have you spent the whole fucking day in front of that computer?”  It’s nearly seven.  Nigel had left Adam to his business six hours ago.   
  
“Mmhm.” Brow furrowed, Adam finishes another line of code and pastes it into a window, starting the program before minimizing the window and shifting his attention to another.  “I had to write the search programs before breaking into the company servers or I would have nothing to apply against the hacked databanks.”     
  
Usually when someone tries to gain his attention while he's working, Adam will pause what he is doing and give his full attention to them, it's rude not to, and they could be approaching him with something important.  It felt wrong to keep his back to Nigel now, but this material is sensitive.  He needs to be quick getting in and getting out or he risks a larger digital footprint, the possibility of his planted coding being detected and deleted, or another programmer finding his trail and following it back to his house.  He had scrambled his IP address and made all contact minimal, but it's still a high risk situation if he lingers any longer than necessary.  
  
Adam opens another window, copying another set of text to paste into a large data-coded screen, and saves those changes as well. Done for now, he exits the last remaining screens before powering off the laptop and folding it closed.  
  
His heart starts to pound in his chest as he stares at the black box. Though he isn’t entirely sure why, he's anxious. He'd told Nigel he would help him, and he has. He’s broken the law, but he won’t be caught – not with the scrambling of his IP, the extra time spent coding to ensure their safety, the speed of his quick ins and outs on each site he visited -- but he recognizes his anxiety. It makes his fingers curl and his breath come short and fast, but he doesn’t understand why.  
  
“You okay Adam?”  Nigel asks, pulling out a seat to join him at the table. “Did something go wrong?”    
  
Normally a situation like that would mean every man for himself and fuck the idiots who attract attention.  People like Charlie he’d gladly have left high and dry to figure out their own fucking alibi.  But Adam – this kid who is too nice for his own fucking good and endangering his own fucking freedom for no other reason than to help Nigel out – he’d make sure Adam learned to run for the fucking hills and never looking back if something went wrong. Adam's taking a risk for him, so he'll take one in return.  
  
Plus, Adam is as alone as Nigel is, if his eagerness to make a friend and empty house is anything to go by.

“I’ve finished all I can do for now,” Adam tells him, as though he hasn’t just finished pulling off something amazing. His hands are still fisting on the table,  his focus tense on the laptop.   
  
“Okay, you're finished…so what’s wrong with that?”  
  
“Nothing.”  
  
“So why are you acting wired?”    
  
Adam's brow furrows at the word and Nigel amends: “Weird, odd, anxious?  You look fucking strung out.  Did something go wrong?”   
  
He wets his lips, watching Adam's knuckles turn white in their grip on the table.    
  
“You don’t have to lie to me Adam, I won’t be mad.”  
  
“I don’t lie.”  
  
"And isn’t that the biggest lie of all?" Nigel thinks.    
  
“Everyone lies, Adam,” he says instead.  
  
“I don’t. It doesn’t make sense to me.”    
  
He can’t always tell when people are lying. It’s confusing and tremendously frustrating, has triggered more than one meltdown when he couldn't interpret what was real and what was not. No...Adam would rather just know the truth.    
  
“It makes me angry,” he intones seriously.  
  
“Everyone lies Adam, it’s the way of the world.”    
  
Not just his own world either, the whole world, every bitch and asshole and church-praising junky lies.  Little or big, a lie is a lie is a lie.  
  
Adam looks toward Nigel, turning his body to face him and glancing up with lovely grey blue eyes flashing between throat and face, trying to make his point: “I don’t. I don’t lie Nigel, and I don’t like liars.”    
  
He manages to meet Nigel’s honey eyes for half a second before his attention turns back to the table and he asks Nigel to make the biggest mistake of his life.  “Please don’t lie to me. I...I can’t do this if you’re going to lie to me.”  
  
If Nigel lied, he wouldn’t be able to trust him again without the nagging thought that he couldn't be believed. Adam wouldn't know when he was being lied too or when he was told the truth, and they couldn’t have a real friendship between them with that in the way.  
  
Adam looks so serious, so completely honest about his inability to cope, with his need for this one thing from him. It’s more trust than Nigel deserves.  It’s a request for something that Adam really shouldn’t be asking for. Ignorance is bliss, and Nigel is one of those bad things in life that people are better off being ignorant about.  
  
“You won’t like the truths I’ll tell you, they’re the kind of things parents lie about so that children can sleep at night.”    
  
Another warning, another chance for Adam to see the danger and turn away. 

But Adam just nods. It’s what he wants, and what he needs.    
  
“That’s fine.”  
  
“Alright, no lies.” 

Given how much business Nigel runs on lies, he isn’t sure how long this will work.   
  
“Now tell me what went wrong.”   
  
“Nothing went wrong,” Adam says again, frustration growing at his inability to translate his own feelings. “I’m just having anxiety.”    
  
It's the only description that seems to fit. It doesn’t feel like fear or excitement, it feels…different. It’s overwhelming; not to the point of a panic attack, but not quite comfortable either.  
  
“It’s probably a fucking adrenalin rush,” Nigel says with a smirk.   
  
He watches those skilled slender hands open and close as if searching for something to hold onto, excess energy and excitement visible.    
  
“You ever do anything illegal before?”  
  
Adam shakes his head, he’s always been a good person. He follows the law to the best of his ability, his life fitting neatly into the parameters of legality.   
  
“Then there you go! You’ve got an adrenaline rush, a buzz from the endorphins of doing something taboo.”    
  
He watches Adam's skinny shoulder move, breath coming just a little too fast, body tense, and Nigel does what he would have done for Gabi. He reaches out his hand, slipping it under Adam’s so they sit on the table palm to palm, and runs his thumb along the back of Adam's fingers.    
  
“Take a breath darling, slow, deep.”   
  
Adam’s eyes are jumping between their hands and Nigel’s face – more of his throat really – processing the touch, the comfort, and what it means.    
  
“This shit gets easier the more you do it,” he reassures, remembering the first time he’d pulled a heist. It had been at the ripe young age of nineteen. He'd joined a local group and made his first big payout intercepting a shipment of cocaine.  
  
It had been the first time in his life he’d had any real money and the beginning of a drug addiction that had followed him for eight years afterward.  Now, years later, he smoked and drank, but hadn’t touched the powder since.   
  
Thin fingers squeeze tight around Nigel’s hand and Adam takes a breath the way Nigel tells him to, slow and deep, following the even breathing of the man at his side, waiting for the feeling of something tight in his chest to go away.   
  
“You don’t have to do this for me Adam,” Nigel offers, once again offering him an out. Nigel can do it without him, it will take longer and have him making another couple of long distance phone calls, but he can do it.  “You can stop.”  
  
“I want to help.” It's said with more emotion than Adam has offered before when speaking with Nigel, there’s an edge to it, a want, a need to help him.  So sincere. Adam is an enigma Nigel simply isn’t meant to understand.  
  
“I want your help, but I don’t want you having a fucking heart attack doing it.”   
  
Adam nods his assent, “My heart palpitations aren’t enough to induce cardiac arrest,” he assures.  
  
“I don’t want you having a fucking anxiety attack from it,” Nigel clarifies with a sigh. He will have to get use to either speaking in literal terms or explaining himself regularly.  
  
Adam nods again, “I’ll be fine.”  

Nigel isn’t sure how much of that he believes, but if Adam is going to continue, than he’s going to make a point of being available for the kid. He'll keep close during the time that Adam is sitting at the computer working himself up over breaking the law.  
  
Maybe Nigel can give him something back for this gift that Adam is giving him.  
  
“Alright then. Good,” Nigel says with one last squeeze as Adam's breathing eases to something more normal and Nigel slips his hand back.  He's still dumbfounded that this kid would go to such lengths for someone like him, a bad man he has nothing to gain from – because despite the agreed upon exchange of friendship, a relationship with Nigel is worth shit when it comes down to it.   
  
“Now tell me what the shit you were writing is going to do.”  
  
Adam had allowed Nigel's grip to slip from his.  He'd wanted to keep it, that feeling of skin pressed against skin.  It's not something he experiences often, and he had enjoyed it.    
  
“I created an algorithm using-”  
  
Nigel lifts his hand, shaking his head to stop Adam before he can get started on something that will have Nigel's eyes glazing over and grey matter dripping from his ears. “No, it’s fine.  I trust you.”   
  
Adam hasn’t given him any reason not to.  He’s probably the most honest and genuine person Nigel's ever met.    
  
“You wrote me some computer jargon that’s gonna find Gabi and Charlie.  It’s good enough for me.”  
  
“Only Charlie,” Adam corrects, earning a narrow look from deep honey eyes. Nigel's eyes are piercing, overwhelming, and Adam finds himself needing to look away almost the moment they met his softer grey. “Y-you haven’t told me your last name or Gabi’s. I need full names in order to make the search.”    
  
And then there was still the problem of finding them in the databases, master numbers from drivers licenses, passports, or SIN numbers. It's not a quick and easy process.  
  
Tapping a calloused finger on the cell number written on the paper towel he’d left behind, Nigel reminds himself once more that this is a favor he's been granted as a gift.  His patience – or lack thereof – be damned, he can’t let himself get mad at this kid.    
  
“And why didn’t you call to ask?”  
  
Adam shifts. His eyes are sore from staring at the computer so long, and he's hungry from having missed his lunch in his focus and pursuit – it’s making him anxious enough without Nigel seeming upset with him.  Maybe not upset…unhappy? His look reminds Adam of his earlier years, and the expressions worn by his school teachers when they would grow frustrated with him. Nigel's body signals his exasperation.    
  
“I was busy writing the algorithms for Charlie,” Adam says.  
  
“You can’t write one with both names?”  
  
“I could, yes, but I only had one name. I worked with what I had.”  
  
Nigel gives up on trying to rationalize intentions.   
  
“Gabriella Ibanescu,” he tells Adam.    
  
It's Gabi's maiden name.  For everything she’d wanted to share with Nigel, Gabi had kept her own name, and he’d been fine with that.  Nigel is dangerous, always has been, and the small disassociation kept her that much safer, and perhaps more respected too, depending on where she was.  
  
Or it would have if he didn’t follow...  
  
He always followed.  
  
“I’ll need you to write her name down,” Adam prompts.    
  
Nigel takes a pen and jots it down next to his number, tucking the piece of paper towel under the side of the laptop.    
  
“You can look at that later,” he tells Adam before he can reach for it. “Right now you’re going to take a break and eat.  I’m buying.  Where do you wanna go?”  
  
“Here,” Adams say simply. 

It’s late for dinner, his whole day has been a mess and it doesn’t feel right to start their meal now at half past seven, but it’ll be better than going without entirely.   
  
“I’ll make us some macaroni and cheese,” he adds, getting up from his seat.  
  
“I meant I’ll take us some place nice,” Nigel explains, wanting to offer Adam some form of thanks –a reward – something for his hard work.  “Let me buy you something you don’t usually have, spoil you a little.  It’s a ‘thank you’.”  
  
“Oh.” Adam pauses, his hand on the freezer door, thinking of what Nigel is offering him and his feelings about it.  “I don’t like eating out. I'd rather eat at home.”    
  
Nigel's company will be appreciated all the same.  
  
Adam opens the freezer and Nigel can’t stop the nonplus that colors his face: “You only eat three things?”    
  
He stares hard at the small selection of food available: Frozen macaroni and cheese, frozen sliced cooked chicken, and frozen bagged broccoli.   
  
He’ll have to make a grocery run if he wants anything else it seems, though where he’ll be storing it is another mystery. The freezer is tightly packed and meticulously organized.  
  
“I also have bran cereal and ham for sandwiches.”   
  
Oh joy, all bran and ham.    
  
“You have no sense of adventure,” Nigel laughs. There is definitely a trip to the grocery store in his future.  
  
“I just hacked a major government website and six banks,” Adam counters, taking down two boxes of military organic mac ‘n cheese  
  
Nigel wet his lips and laughs, “Saucy little fuck.”  He slides alongside Adam to searches the cupboards for something to drink besides water. He finds a coffee machine in the back corner of a cupboard with some old filters and grounds and pulls it down.   
  
Adam makes no comment on Nigel’s remark, supposing it's another of his odd expressions, and focuses instead on peeling back cardboard lids to microwave their meals.  
  
“You care if I use this?” Nigel asks, though he’s already rinsing the pot clean of the thin layer of dust collected during storage.  
  
“It’s late for caffeine isn’t it?”  Adam asks.   
  
Really it’s late for everything kitchen-related, and it's making him a little bit anxious.  He’ll be okay. He’ll eat his dinner at the wrong time with his company, clean up at the wrong time, and then he will focus on the adjustments for his coding to include both names. It will be much easier than his initial writing of the code had been, and he’ll be done quickly. At the very least he will be able to go to bed on time and begin his tomorrow with more normalcy than today has provided.  
  
Nigel shrugs. “I won’t be sleeping tonight.” 

He’ll try, lie down on the couch or guest bed or wherever the fuck he’s sleeping and close his eyes, but he knows himself and knows that it’s not going to last.  He’ll be up within the hour and pacing the floor and looking for anything to distract his mind from his wife.  He’ll probably end up going for a walk to look at those stars they’d been talking about before, have a smoke while he’s out there because there’s no way Adam’s going to let him smoke inside, not with the way he’d wrinkled his nose at the smoke in his car.   
  
Adam frowns, stirring the first container of macaroni and setting it on the table for Nigel before peeling back the lid and microwaving the next.  
  
“That’s not healthy," he intones seriously. "The body needs sleep, your brain can’t function properly without it.”    
  
“I’m upset over Gabi,” Nigel explains, knowing now that he will need to outline his feelings if he wants Adam to get a proper grasp on what’s happening inside his head. “It bothers me that she lied to me, used me, and then left me for another man. I’m not going to be sleeping tonight because thinking about it is going to keep me up, not because I don’t want to sleep.”  
  
Adam thinks for a moment. “I understand.”  
  
He knows that feeling, he’d had a difficult time adjusting to the loss of his father, and as a result the carefully created structure of his life that shifted with the sudden change. It had been difficult and stressful, and he had lost sleep over thoughts of his dad, and worrying about the things that were changing that he could do nothing about. But still, it wasn’t a reason to drink coffee.    
  
“Having caffeine will only make anxiety and insomnia worse,” he says sagely.

Nigel casts him a sidelong look before abandoning the coffee pot and taking a seat at the table with his macaroni and a fresh glass of water instead of the much desired caffeine.    
  
“Fine.”   
  
He has no idea what it is about this kid that has him making so many concessions to his everyday life, but he is.  Nigel is making one exception after another, changing the rules he lives by to give Adam what he wants. "Needs," a small part of his brain offers – Nigel is giving Adam what he needs.  
  
Maybe it’s because of Gabi, but he likes it.  It feels good to be needed, to have something to offer somebody that isn't just money, especially after having Gabi use him for it.  
  
Adam moves the newer laptop from the table and sets up his own personal one, opening it up to start up a DVD of ‘The Actors Studio’.  He knows it’s not the polite thing to do when you have a guest, but with so much change happening in one day – he can’t make the concession to try and make conversation during his meal as well.  He needs this, he needs the little bit of normalcy created by routine.    
  
“I’m sorry,” he says, guilt chewing at him as he presses play and the screen lights up with James Lipton, “I-I need to watch this while I eat.”   
  
Too many changes, too many breaks from routine. Adam can’t make another exception, and this is probably the point where Nigel is going to force an answer from him, ask him to explain his particularities. Adam won’t be able to pretend to be "normal" anymore after this – he’ll have to explain to Nigel why he’s different, tell him about Aspergers.  
  
Nigel takes a bit of the cheesy mess from his cardboard container and raises two pale brows at the kid who needs his show to eat.  He’d ruined Adam’s day off, dragged him from his rock display and turned his world upside down, if he needed a little down time with his show and macaroni, Nigel would make damn sure he got it.  
  
“Yeah?” He gets up, grabbing his chair to drag around the table and sit more or less at Adam’s side. “That’s fine by me.”    
  
He sets the piping hot pasta in his lap and makes another adjustment in his life for the kid who needs it more than he does, dropping conversation to watch a program he doesn’t like about an actress he doesn’t care about.   
  
He does it to make Adam happy.  
  
As Adam sits there eating pasta and mouthing out the words along with the show, Nigel watches him visibly relax, lets it distract him, and in turn, it ebbs away at a little of the pain hollowing out his chest. He watches as the little concession he’s made brings a semblance of calm and happiness to Adam’s life.  
  
Maybe he’ll ask him about Orion when the episode’s over.  
  
OoOoO  
  
TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading~<3
> 
> Your kudos are mouthing along to the Actor's Studio, your comments are eating macaroni and whispering pervy thoughts in Nigel's ear.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my darlings! 
> 
> This story has been received beautifully since I began posting it and it makes me so happy~♡♡♡
> 
> I was actually really nervous to write and post this piece. I had very little confidence in my abilities to properly portray Adam and his condition correctly. So thank you everyone who's been reading and enjoying this fic, my confidence has boomed and I have a short sequel planned for this now ~♡♡♡
> 
> Also, unless a miracle occurs this will be my last update for about a week. Friday - Sunday is all moving and Sunday - Wednesday is all cleaning and then it's onto painting and unpacking...so...yeah. I'm gonna be s little busy. :B
> 
> On with the story! 
> 
> I own nothing! 
> 
> Beta read by Diedofennui who is a goddess of editing ~♡♡♡

Asking Adam about the stars had been a mistake, not because he’d latched onto the topic and delved into it for hours, Nigel had actually enjoyed watching that.  Adam had lit up with Nigel’s initial question, suddenly bubbling with energy and life as he detailed the endless galaxies that surround them.  Nigel had sipped his water and listened to him with undivided attention until the boy had been forced to relent for bed. 

Which was where Nigel had made the mistake, he’d let Adam talk into the early hours of the morning and now he would be exhausted for work.

But it had been like watching magic, Adam gaining life like a car increasing acceleration. The deeper he delved into the familiar topic, the more energy he seemed to radiate.

It was addicting, Nigel found himself enjoying the melody of Adam’s enthusiastic words the same way he enjoyed the rhythm of Gabi’s cello.  Their conversation – one sided as it was – became the welcome distraction he had been looking for, and selfishly, Nigel had kept Adam up until had been forced to stop for sleep due to interrupting yawns.

For hours Nigel had sat on the couch, sipping water, just listening to Adam. And in doing so he had learned as much about the young man as he had about the endless universe around them.

Nigel knows that Adam is special. He isn’t like the usual sacks of shit Nigel meets day in and day out, he’s as unique as the stars he loves and just as difficult to reach.  Speaking to him is like learning a new language, Nigel just as lost and confused about what Adam's feeling as Adam is with what the world is trying to push on him. 

Only Nigel is learning.  He’s watching the way Adam moves, and listening to his careful selection of words, and in turn carefully selecting his own in order to communicate with Adam the way he needs.  It’s a project no different than moving to France, and then deciding to learn the language.

It’s said there’s no better way to learn than total submersion.

And Adam, beautiful, brilliant Adam, he wants to be reached, he wants someone to take the plunge.

Nigel had learned while sitting on that couch just how lonely Adam is.  He wants to meet people, he wants to interact and converse, to know people, and to have the social experiences that the vast majority of the populace take for granted – he aches for it.

He just can't seem to instigate it.

It’s like there’s some part of Adam’s brain that’s stopping him, something beyond a simple lack of confidence.

In their short time together, Adam has put as much energy into trying to keep Nigel’s company as he had in explaining his love for the galaxies – at least that's how it looks from Nigel’s perspective.  Adam has already explained that he can’t go out into the crowds of the museum, that he takes special time off of work for his quiet trip to view space rocks.

“God’s crueler than I am,”  Nigel muses. If there is a god, one, many or none-at-all, Nigel doesn’t know, but if there is, they’ve got a sick sense of humor.  Create someone as lovely as Adam, and then make him desire the contact he’s unable to chase.

_Heartless._

“Beautiful,” Nigel murmurs to himself, staring up into the darkness Adam had spoken so fondly of.  He might be talking about the night sky or Adam, Nigel's not entirely sure himself, but his mouth curves into a smile at the thought.

Thinking isn’t the same as cheating. The phrase "look but don't touch" comes to mind.

But Nigel isn’t cheating, not by thinking about Adam and how special he is.  He isn’t fucking around behind Gabi’s back the way she’s doing now – probably has been for months.  Nigel is just appreciating something for what it is.  Special, beautiful, strange and unique – Adam should be celebrated. Instead he’s hidden away, buried like one of Nigel’s diamonds beneath shit and soil, waiting to be unearthed and taken out into the world – polished into brilliance and looked upon with jealous eyes.

Really, Adam doesn’t even need to be polished and shined.  He’s fucking brilliant the way he is.

Nigel is broken. He’s smart enough to know that he’s broken, so why is it that he can see how special Adam is when no one else can?  Surely no one else can, because if they could see it they’d be flocking to him.

It has Nigel thinking of someone else he had once appreciated when no one else did, someone with a passion for music who had turned her passion into a career with just a little encouragement.

“Gabi,” he whispers, searching out the constellations visible above him as he thinks of the woman who might be watching the same stars. A piece of him already knows how this is going to end.  Really there is only one way it can end, and Nigel is hoping blindly for something he can’t have. He wants Gabi to come back to him, and knows it’s as likely as a second sun rising over the earth. He'll have to force her back if he wants to see her at all, and that won’t make her love him.

Gabi ran away, and though he doesn’t understand why, he’s knows that he’s lost her love.  Pain twists in his chest again and the back of his eyes start to burn.

Nigel will bring her back to him, but he already knows he can’t keep her.  Not and have her happy with him.  Not if she had been willing to go this far to get away from him.

“Until death do us part,” he whispers, blowing a swirl of smoke to mingle with the night sky.  He'd meant his vows when he'd said them, meant every fucking word.

He would see them honored, one way or another.

Flicking the cigarette butt to roll through night-damp grass, he turns to begin the long walk back to Adam’s apartment from Central Park.  He hadn’t been able to see many stars, not in the bright Manhattan sky.  Even at night the city lights kept the sky too bright to really see much of anything through the light orange haze of the city.

The pin pricks lighting up the darkness that Nigel spent the last two hours staring at are nothing compared to some of the starlit skies he’s fallen asleep under before.  He’s seen the sky so dark that the veil of the milky-way was visible within it, bright as a river with celestial light.

He could see Adam falling in love with that sky.

He could see himself falling in love with Adam watching it.

OoOoO

Adam wakes to the chime of his alarm and fights the urge to stay in bed. He’s tired from the long day before, and the late hour he had decided to go to sleep.  All he wants to do now is roll over and hide away for another few hours until he feels more rested. But that would throw off his schedule, and with it the rest of his day.  He's already had enough changes to cope with without adding a delayed start, plus he has a house guest.

Stretching, Adam works a few of the knots from his back, sore after too many hours bent over his laptop and not enough sleep.  He yawns, pulling himself from the warmth of his bed and proceeding with the routine of his day.  He makes his bed, pours his cereal, watches an episode of "The Actors Studio" while eating, showers, shaves, dresses and combs his hair.  The whole morning proceeds with more normalcy than he’d expected, the only concession so far has been keeping the volume of his program down during breakfast for the man sleeping on his couch.

The idea of someone sleeping in his father’s room was strange, so he’d offered the sofa instead when Nigel had finally inquired about sleeping accommodations.

It’s as Adam is packing his lunch that his comfortable routine is broken.

“Morning,” Nigel greets him from the doorway of the kitchen.  

Adam takes a breath, slow and deep, and slides his sandwich into a container.  This is...odd.  Not bad, just different.  He had been hoping to maybe leave for work without having to see Nigel this morning, not because he doesn’t want him there, just to keep the beginning of his day normal, to give himself more time to adjust to the new person in his home.

“Good morning Nigel,” he greets in return, turning to face his guest with an attempt at a smile. It’s faltering on his mouth even as he holds it, an effort made for the socially-expected greeting.

Nigel watches him for one long moment, neither saying anything more before Nigel walks past him to grab a mug from the cupboard and start the coffee pot.

“Do your thing babe, I’m just getting coffee.”

It isn’t the response Adam was expecting.

“W-what?”

“You’ve got a routine right?”

Adam nods slowly, curious at the prospect of this man possibly understanding him.

“Do your routine," Nigel continues," I’m gonna to make myself some coffee and sit in the living room.  The kitchen is yours.  You come through to sit with me if you want to, if you don’t, I won’t take it personally.”

He says it all with a casual shrug, eyes on the coffee pot, giving Adam free range to study his face and the relaxed look of acceptance upon it.

“I-it’s not you,”  Adam begins, expecting he'll need to explain himself.

Nigel searches out a bowl of cereal, watching Adam out of the corner of his eye.

“I just find it easier…,” Adam trails off.

Nigel smiles, it’s wide, shows his crooked teeth, the bags under his eyes that suggest he hasn’t slept much.

“I know that," Nigel assures, "It’s fine.  You need time to adjust to new things and you were thrown into an ocean of new yesterday.”

He pulls the pot from the perk before it's finished brewing and pours enough of the black stuff into a mug to fill it to the rim.

“You take your time, do your thing.  I’ll be in the next room if you want some company.”

“Thank you,” Adam says, open-mouthed, shocked and thankful.

It’s a better outcome than he’d expected, much better, the anxiety that had been building with Nigel’s “Good morning,” slipping away as he watches Nigel take his bowl and coffee and leave the room, stepping away just as he said he would.

Without being told, without knowing about Adam's Aspergers, Nigel read him and gave him exactly what he needed, normalcy in an unknown situation.  No one, not even Adam’s father, had been able to give him this before and it’s…it’s nothing short of amazing.  He feels completely accepted in the company of another.

Nigel understands him.

Adam finishes packing his lunch and pulls on his shoes for work, taking his bag with him as he walks to the door to leave for the office.  Nigel is sitting on the sofa, an empty bowl balanced awkwardly on a coaster in front of him to spare the wood from rings.  His cup of coffee is in hand, a newspaper folded over in his other. He’s reading the front page with an attentive look.

“I-I’m off at five, I’ll be home close to six.”

Nigel lifts his eyes from the paper and looks to Adam but doesn’t trying to force eye contact.

“I’ll be here when you get back,” he assures. And then, “I found a set of keys hung on a peg by the door. They looked like spares, so I grabbed them for a walk last night.  You care if I hold onto them for a bit?”

The keys were his fathers.  Adam had left them on a hook by the door in case he misplaced his own.  He hadn’t sold his father’s car yet either, the keys for his Sedan still on the same ring.

“That’s fine.”  He considers for a moment before deciding to take another step. “Th-the parking space for my father’s Sedan is number four.  You can borrow it, if you’d like.”

Adam gives a small smile. He’s proud of himself for this, for making some concessions to his routine and not being overloaded by it all.

Nigel’s own smile stretches a little wider as he sets the newspaper aside. Adam's gaze follows the folded front page rather than rising to his guest's face.  There’s a picture of a burning building on the front, an old apartment building with the windows blown out and part of the railing hanging loose.

“I’d like that," Nigel says. "You want a lift to work?”

“Oh! No thank you," Adam murmurs, "I like to walk.”

He isn’t quite ready for that step yet, and the walk will clear his head and help him process everything a little better.

“Sure thing,” Nigel nods.

Adam leaves the apartment feeling good about himself.  Their exchanges have been comfortable for him, not overwhelming the way he’d expected them to be.  Nigel has made everything surprisingly easy for him, and Adam is even more excited about their developing friendship.

There is still the drawback of needing to help Nigel find his wife – breaking the law with his computer skills makes Adam's stomach flip – but once that’s finished, he'll be able to enjoy Nigel’s company without any more worry.

He arrives early to Replay Ink and goes to his desk, saying good morning to his coworkers along the way.  The day already feels a little off with the extra person in his house, and he feels overtired, but it’s a good kind of off.  It’s the sort of strange that comes with change and this change is good.  Adam begins work on his programming as soon as he sits down, and after a few minutes loses himself entirely to the careful wiring of a new talking doll.

“Adam?”

He jumps, startled by an unexpected visitor behind his chair, and carefully lays his programming chip to the side to face his boss.

“Good morning Mr. Kleiber.”

“Morning, uh, you came early. That’s good.”  He rubs the back of his neck with a large hand, shifting as he looks around the room.  “Look, this isn’t easy, you-you’ve been a great asset to this company.”

“Thank you.”

“In your two years here your work has been excellent and I’ve never seen you come in late.”

Adam nods. “Yes, thank you," he says again. Talk about his work habits is to be expected, but he's not certain why his boss wishes to discus them now. "These are good things?" Adam clarifies.

“Yes, very good. I just want you to know how much this company has appreciated your time with us.  But...I have to let you go.”

Adam sits very still, brain working to process the euphemism. I'm being fired?

Panic takes him in a sweep.

“Let me go? You mean I have to leave? But I work here, w-what about the doll?  I’m not done yet.”

The boss shakes his head with a resigned expression, brushing away Adam’s pleas.

“And I told you before I wanted 5000 dolls at $100, not 100 at $5000.  I can’t sell the doll you're programming Adam.”

Adam feels like he can't keep still, sight skirting around the room, hands fisting, breath speeding, his heart is fluttering and everything feels wrong and too tight.

“I can fix it. Just tell me-”

“I’m sorry Adam, but no.”

“But I-I can, if you just explain to me wh-”

“No,” he says again, soft but firm. “I’ve already found your replacement Adam.  Your severance is at the front desk with Kelly, I’ll give you a minute to pack your things.”

Mr. Kleiber walks away. Leaving Adam alone in the small cramped space of his cubical. He is hollow, painfully awash in emotions he struggles to process and contain. Adam turns back to his monitor and stares at the program screen for several minutes before shutting down his computer and gathering his things.

OoOoO

TBC  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading ~♡
> 
> Your kudos are chewing on Nigel's shoes, your comments are making paper airplanes with office supplies.
> 
> The author is debating if she can get one more chapter in before she disappears for a week....


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is being prepared for posting several days in advance. I'm probably in the middle of dying under a box or fallen bed frame or something while you're reading this. It'll be posted with the push of a button several days after I've gotten everything set up for update from my phone. C;
> 
> Now, I think it goes without saying that Nigel is an ass, but in case anyone has forgotten or overlooked that fact here is your reminder. 
> 
> Nigel is a bag of dicks. 
> 
> Not to Adam...but everyone else in the world...so...yeah. No one get mad at me for his being a prick.
> 
> I own nothing. 
> 
> Beta read by diedofennui who I could not have written this fic without and who I can never praise enough for her amazing work~<3

Showered, dressed and freshly shaved, Nigel whistles “Shave and a Haircut” as he locks up Adam’s apartment and his temporary home.

“Oh!” A quiet voice says from behind him, pulling Nigel’s attention from the door to the woman at his back. He turns to meet her, a soft-skinned, wide-eyed girl, with pleasant enough features, who's looking at him in surprise.

He gives her a quick, appreciative, once-over and taps a cigarette from his soft pack. He knows he’s not the kind that this sort of neighborhood usually attracts, but it’s still rude as fuck to stare.

“Problem?” he asks.

“Oh, no, I’m so sorry. It’s just – I thought someone else lived here.”

 _So that’s it then_ , he thinks, a half smile pulling at his lips. It makes Nigel wish Adam was home so that he could point the kid in the direction of a cute girl with an obvious interest in the strange, gorgeous boy.

“He still does,” Nigel assures her, setting the smoke between his lips and fishing in his pocket for a lighter. “Adam’s at work. Should be home later.”

He finds his zippo and lights up, taking a deep breath of smoke and nicotine. It's a bad habit, but it's one he plans to take to his grave.

The face Adam’s neighbour makes informs him that the hallways are a "no smoking zone," and his exhale of silver smoke tells her exactly how much he cares.

"You want me to tell him you came by?" he offers with a devious smile. He doesn’t mind playing wingman to help Adam get laid. As far as Nigel’s concerned, the kid could use a good fuck.

"Oh no! We, um, we don't talk, not anymore." She turns, intending to continue up the stairs to the third floor.

That certainly wasn’t the answer he expected.

"Why the fuck not?" he asks before she can ascend.

He takes another deliberate breath of smoke, this one to annoy her. He hasn’t known Adam for long, barely more than twenty-four hours, but in the short time of their acquaintance, he hasn’t seen any reason why someone would want to avoid the kid.

She turns on him, smile tight as she meets his eyes. It makes him grin around the filter of his cigarette. While she’s getting bent out of shape over his casual vulgarity, he’s nothing short of lax, leaning back against Adam's door.

"That's not really any business of yours," she says with forced pleasantry.

"I'm living with him," Nigel informs her, nonchalant, downplaying his ire. "The more I know the better."

It isn't really the case, he just wants to know why a pretty girl like her would snub a gorgeous boy like Adam.

She considers Nigel a moment more before answering, “I wasn’t able to handle his…needs.”

That might sound kinky if Adam didn’t look like a fucking virgin.

“Needs? What fucking needs?”

Assuming this fancy lady isn’t implying crazy foreplay, Nigel hardly counts a little extra explanation and alone-time as "needs". He’s dated women who are a hell of a lot needier than that.

“His need for attention,” she says with a shrug. “Everything comes back to Adam: his wants, his preferences, his… Look, he just needed more attention than I could give. It was like dating a child.”

“A child?” He pushes off the door with a casual movement that places him a little too close to the woman insulting the gorgeous boy who's been nothing short of perfect since Nigel met him.

She shifts. Intimidated by his changed stance; it makes him taller, broader than his louche lean had let on. It's a useful effect in some situations, but it's not his intention now. He might be annoyed, but he isn’t out to intimidate this girl.

She swallows, unnerved, but also unwilling to give ground to Adam’s dangerous new roommate.

“I told him one small, innocent white lie,” she elaborates, “and he lost it. Adam isn’t comfortable with groups of people, even small groups. The first time I invited him to meet my friends he stood me up, wouldn’t even answer his door. So, when my parents started asking to meet with him, I just thought it would be easier if he didn’t see it coming. It was innocent. We went out, "bumped" into my parents, and he was fine the whole night. When he found out I’d arranged the meeting,” her brow creases with the memory, “he was so mad. He started throwing things and yelling and – the things he said.”

She straightens, her soft brown eyes meeting Nigel’s: “Adam has a social limit. A lot of it can be blamed on his Aspergers, but part of it is that he just needs to grow up. I couldn’t handle it. We stopped talking after that.”

“Grow up?” Nigel growls.

He's damn certain that he doesn’t like Adam’s neighbor.

"Look lady, Adam's living on his own and manages a well-paying job. He's doing it all with some kind of disorder or whatever, and you’re telling me he’s gotta 'grow up?'”

This time when he smiles it’s not meant to be pleasant, his crooked teeth bared in a sneer: “Maybe you need to get your head out of your ass. I happen to agree with Adam, you don’t lie to the ones you love.”

“It was a white lie,” she defends, “it was so he’d meet my parents! There was no reason for him to throw things and shout. He frightened me.”

“A lie’s a lie,” he tells her, shrugging off her defense. “You know the Good Book tells all the little boys and girls that one.”

His grandfather’s belt across his ass had drilled not telling lies into Nigel. Not that it had stopped him; he still lied, he just got better at it.

“And did you know that Adam had Aspergers when you decided to tell your 'little white lie?' Did you take the time to pick up a fucking book and see what he could and couldn’t handle before you decided to pull something you knew he wouldn't be able to pick up on?”

He can see the tears swelling in her eyes and doesn't give a damn.

“You’re the one who fucked up," he finishes.

Just like Gabi. She lied to him and fucked it all up.

Now he's retaliating.

“You’re an asshole!" the neighbor snaps

“I’ve been called worse by better.”

“You weren’t there. Don’t you dare try to take sides on something that had nothing to do with you. You can’t possibly understand!”

As if on cue, Adam steps into the hallway, cardboard box in hand, facing them somberly as he looks between the two in confusion.

“I think I understand just fine,” Nigel says, slipping an arm around Adam’s skinny waist and pulling the smaller man against him with a gentle tug. He probably enjoys it a little more than he should, burying his nose in Adam's curls with a grin. “Better than you think.”

Disbelief colors her face, her eyes red and watery.

“You picked a real winner Adam,” she sniffs, a few tears rolling the length of her cheek that Nigel doesn’t feel guilty about.

“I hope you’re happy," she addresses at Adam, "You’re dating an ass.”

Adam's brows furrows at the strange conversation, Beth finally striding up the stairs and away. Nigel continues to smile proudly against Adam's hairline.

“What is Beth talking about?” he finally asks.

Nigel pulls away from him, taking another drag from the cigarette.

Adam frowns at his hand.

“You aren’t allowed to smoke in the hallway,” he intones seriously.

“Mm, sorry.”

Nigel crushes the cherry between finger and thumb, unlocking the door he’d only just closed and holds it for Adam to step inside.

“Your neighbour’s upset because I gave her the impression that we’re dating,” he tells him, closing the door behind them as he follows Adam back into the apartment.

“But we’re not,” Adam says.

“No we’re not, and I never said that we were. But I led her to believe that we are.”

“That’s lying,” Adam counters.

Nigel can see where this is going, and it definitely isn’t where he wants.

“I promised that I wouldn’t lie to you Adam. I keep my promises.”

“But you lied to Beth.”

“I deceived her with my actions, but she made the assumption herself,” he corrects. “All I told her was that I understood you just fine.”

Certainly better than she had, and he’s only just heard of this Aspergers thing.

Adam nods, accepting the answer given. “Alright.”

“I do lie Adam,” he explains. “I do it a lot, but I won’t lie to you.”

“Okay.” Adam agrees with a sneaking glance to Nigel’s face.

If Nigel is lying to him, even in this, Adam can’t tell. He hasn’t given Adam any reason not to trust him, so he’ll take him at his word. He sets the box he’d carried home onto the kitchen table before he takes a seat. He is feeling uncomfortable, the swarm of emotions tumbling inside him after losing his job is overwhelming.

Nigel watches him, the tight tension in his shoulders, the crease between his brows, the way his hands tighten up against the box on the table. He’s upset. Possibly worried or angry? Grabbing a chair, Nigel pulls it around the table and takes a seat across from him.

“Tell me what you’re doing home early,” he suggests.

“I lost my job,” Adam says in a rush, eyes tightly closed. “I was told after my father's death that I would need a well-paying job to be able to keep the apartment. The mortgage is too high to pay with just my inheritance." His breaths begin to come faster. "I’ll be forced to sell it if I can’t keep up with the payments. I need a job. Need...”

“There’s lots of jobs out there for a smart guy like you,” Nigel interrupts as Adam begins to panic.

He watches the minute flickers of emotion that pass over Adam's face, small tugs in his mouth and brow that Adam can't verbalize right now as frustration, anger, worry.

“I’m not good with interviews,” Adam begins again. “My father helped me get my job at Replay Ink, he’d spoken to Mr. Kleiber, told him about…” -- He still doesn’t want to tell Nigel about his neurodivergence -- “I-I don’t know if I can get one again.”

Nigel glances toward the computer on the table, the one he’d bought the kid for temporary use and quick disposal.

“As I see it you’ve got three options, Adam. You can either sit her sulking about it, or you can put yourself out there and get another job.”

He reaches over the table, grabbing the laptop and dragging it to sit in front of Adam. “Or... you can work for me.”

Surprised, Adam looks at the laptop. He thinks of the laws he’s already broken with the hacked bank accounts and program codes. He thinks of how he’s helped Nigel, how much the man sitting before him appreciates his skill, needs him even now.

“What would I do?” he asks softly.

“Same thing you’re doing now.”

“You’d have me find people?”

That doesn’t sound so bad, it still meant hacking into banks and government websites, but it wasn’t as bad as stealing...or something worse.

“Amongst other shit. But I’ll keep you on the tech side of it. You think you can handle that?”

Adam stares at the computer another long moment. “What happens if I can’t?”

“I don’t need two weeks notice if you want to quit. You finish whatever job we’re working on at the time, and you’re free to take off.”

Adam would be one of the only guys Nigel would allow to leave with his heart beating and body parts still intact. Adam's not the kind who'd would turn on him, he wouldn’t be taking info to the cops for a payout.

Another quiet moment passes between them, and Adam opens the laptop, powering it up with the press of a button.

“Okay,” he says.

The decision makes Adam feel better, the unruly tides inside him settling to something that makes him ache. It reminds him of how he felt after his father had passed.

“Good,” Nigel returns.

The kid doesn’t look overly different to him, but Nigel wasn’t expecting an emotional miracle to happen after Adam's just lost his job. Nigel suspects he’ll feel like shit for a couple of hours at least, maybe a couple of days. Especially if he isn’t able to verbalize how he’s feeling.

“Now look," he explains, "the pay for my business works by percentage and take. Take for example the ice we’re getting back from Countryman. The shit he stole from me is worth half a million easy.”

Possibly even more, he'll need to have it properly appraised before he brings it to his buyer, but the estimate Darko had given him was 500K.

“Takes are generally split amongst the crew in even cuts. I take an extra 10% for having planned and organized the damn thing.”

“That’s…a lot of money,” Adam says, breaking down the estimation in sales and percentage in his head. “That’s $300,000 and $200,000.”

More than he’s made the past two years combined.

“I have a partner overseas who’s expecting a cut.”

One that just got smaller and Darko would just have to deal with it.

It wasn’t the first time someone had been taken on last minute, it wouldn’t be the last.

“We’ll be splitting it three ways.”

“That’s still $150,000.”

“Yeah, it’s good money,” Nigel agrees. Better than usual. “But the work is irregular. For money like that you'll need to know how to launder or you’re likely to get caught.”

Adam glances at Nigel’s throat, “You’ll show me what to do?”

“I will if you work with me.”

Working with Nigel will make Adam a felon. But in truth he won’t be breaking many more laws than he already has. Plus, this is a job, one he can do well, and he needs a job fast. He needs the money so he can keep his home. This one job would bring in more than enough money to cover his mortgage for years. Between Adam's inheritance and the occasional job with Nigel, he will have more than enough to stay in his home and continue his comfortable existence.

“Okay,” he nods again, feeling good about his decision, about making a big change and handling it all so well.

He thinks that his parents would be proud too, maybe not of his career change, but about how he’d handed things, managed the sudden upheavals of his life without panic.

“Thank you Nigel.”

“I’m happy to have you,” Nigel smiles.

The smile Adam gives him in return is worth more than all the diamonds they're chasing.

OoOoO

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading~<3
> 
> Your kudos are calling Nigel a Jerk, your comments are cooing over his being sweet with Adam.
> 
> The author twitches beneath a mountain of fallen boxes.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovelies!
> 
> My move is nearly over now, I have a few rooms left to clean and a walk through tomorrow and then it's just unpacking. Thank. God. 
> 
> As always a big thank you to all of my readers who took the time to comment and kudo and read my update, I'm really happy to see everyone has been enjoying the story thus far and I hope not to disappoint with what's left~<3
> 
> I own nothing. 
> 
> Beta read by my personal Super Woman diedofennui <3

It was after another eighteen hours without results that Nigel started adding to Adam’s program, digging out his master list of fake ID’s he and Gabi had used over the years for the boy to add to his program’s search list.  He’d always kept track, just in case something happened, in case something went missing and he needed to track it down – get it back or destroy it.  He just hadn’t expected the something he’d have to hunt to be his ex.   
  
“Add these to your program,”  Nigel tells him, dropping a folded slip of paper to the table by the laptop’s side.  “They’re all the fakes Gabi and I have used over the years.  Everything ever used to open an account, get a loan, or move over a border.”  He pulls a wallet from the back of his jeans, fingers lingering over the plastic sleeve inside, he slips the candid picture free and sets it next to Adam with the master list.  “Do your thing.”  
  
The picture will make it easier for Adam to find her, a face to go with a name.   
  
Adam takes the offered list and adds the names to the many searches already running, broadening their reach with more businesses and websites as the hours tick on.    
  
It’s too soon to be looking for answers, but Nigel is nervous.  His pent up energy makes him want to pace, but his conscious mind realizes that Adam’s needs require him to keep still. Adam doesn’t deserve to be constantly reminded of Nigel’s restlessness and anger.  
  
He decides to call Darko instead.  The phone rings through to voicemail and Nigel feels his ire grow.  He’s never been a patient man. He knows he’s being irritable, but he still doesn’t want to believe his Gabi would abandon him so completely.   
  
   
After the third call rings through to voicemail, Nigel is forced to accept that he’s not getting a hold of Darko until the man is done with whatever the fuck he’s doing and decides to call Nigel back.  It only adds to his nervous energy, so he turns his attention to another distraction.    
  
Housework.  
  
Chores aren’t his usual thing, Nigel prefers the crunch of bone under his knuckles until he can feel the swelling skin across his hand, or even the heavy swing of a punching bag meeting his fist.  But he wants to keep close, be here for any breakthrough that might come from the gifted man housing him.   
  
Another few hours pass before Nigel can’t take the waiting any longer and he asks: “Anything?”   
  
He’s washed up the day’s dishes and is slipping them in the drying rack. Meanwhile Adam’s been busy, working the hacking job like a traditional nine to five – nose to the grindstone.  Nigel’s never been a patient man, and when it comes to his wife he’s always been downright unreasonable, but he can’t be that way with Adam.  He can’t take out his frustrations on the innocent boy helping him look.  It leaves Nigel with enough excess energy that Adam’s entire unit now smells of lemon and pine and they could eat off the fucking floor if they felt so inclined.  
  
Nigel’s gone so far as to slip the windows from their frames and scrub them clean in the bathtub.  The upper level had been harder to reach, but Nigel’s been creative with a duster and damp paper towel, and he’s certainly been wired enough to do it, wasting the better part of three rolls scrubbing grime and dirt from the windows.  
  
“I-I don’t think I can do any more today,”  Adam tells Nigel, powering down the computer to join his guest in the living room.    
  
He pauses with surprise in the doorway when he sees the near perfect clarity of the windows, a few dark smudges running the length of the glass on the outside upper pane while the bottom innermost shine crystal clean.    
  
“Oh, how did you do that?” he asks, walking across the living room to look out through the glass and up toward the darkening sky.  It still isn’t late enough to see any of the multitude of stars in the Manhattan twilight, only Sirius visible now, but soon he’ll be able to see a few with his telescope between the buildings.  It’s something he’s wanted for a long time, and Nigel has presented it to him without Adam needing to ask.   
  
It makes him happy.  
  
It makes him want to kiss Nigel.   
  
“If you push the frames up past the middle they’ll pop out,”  Nigel explains with a shrug.  
  
His feet are crossed on the tabletop as he channel surfs.  He ran out of things to clean shortly after the dishes, and short of color coordinating Adam’s socks, there wasn’t anything left for Nigel to organize.    
  
“I just washed a few in the tub and wiped down what I could of the outer top row.”  
  
Now that he thinks about it, Nigel’s cleaned everything in the spacious apartment but himself.  He looks down at his dusty bowler shirt and debates taking a shower and dressing down for bed early before deciding it can wait.  His favorite distraction is done being distracted, and if he’s feeling like socializing, than Nigel isn’t about to tell the kid to go away for the sake of some soap and hot water.    
  
“Thank you,”  Adam says taking a seat on the couch at his side.  “I’ve wanted them clean for years.”    
  
A smile pulls at his lips and Nigel wants to help that little curl of lips flourish into a face splitting grin.   
  
“You’re welcome.”   
  
The channel-flipping pauses briefly on a local news station as Nigel catches sight of the flames he’d been reading about yesterday morning.  They made the news.  Good.  Volume muted to keep from distracting Adam, Nigel reads the close captioning while keeping half of his attention on Adam.  Multitasking – another skill all too necessary in the business of liars and cheats.   
  
The close captioning describes a gas leak as having caused the explosion, forcing dozens to evacuate the apartment complex.  Six people not-critically injured have been taken to hospital, the only known death investigators are calling a suicide.  Though the identification of the individual has yet to be released, neighbors have cited that unit as belonging to one Roland Simms.  
  
“I wouldn’t have guessed you’d be so clean,”  Adam says, “I’d gathered from our visit to your apartment that you were tidy, but I hadn’t thought you would be quite this meticulous.”  
  
Nigel smiles at the comment.   
  
“You got it right the first time.  I’m not usually this put together in my place,” he confesses. “I clean, but I’m no neat freak.”    
  
He lifts a hand absently to indicate the apartment around them.   
  
“This isn’t my usual thing, it’s just my way of burning off excess energy so I don’t go bat-shit while waiting for something to turn up on Gabi.”  
  
“Oh.”    
  
That makes sense.  Adam considers Nigel’s solution in light of his own nervous tics and pacing that he resorts to when he’s feeling overwhelmed.  He’s not sure if something like cleaning would help him to ease his own anxieties, but it’s a thought.   
  
Turning his attention to the television, Adam reads the panning news cast.  “Roland Simms?”  He knows that name.  Another image of Nigel’s apartment slides onto the screen and Adam feels something in his stomach tighten.    
  
“Your apartment blew up?”    
  
His brow furrows as he looks toward the paired duffel bags at one end of the couch.  His stomach doing another flip as things slid into place he doesn’t want to think about and he looks to the man sitting at his side.  Nigel clearly isn’t dead – but the news cast had stated that a body was found.  His heart begins to flutter.    
  
“What did you do?”  
  
Nigel knows Adam is smart.  He should be proud of him for having put everything together so quickly, recognizing one of many names in a search and after visiting his apartment only once.  Good memory.  He’ll keep that in mind.    
  
“I lit a candle on the far side of the apartment and turned on the gas valve for my stove when I left.”  
  
Adam grips the knees of his pants, sight focus on the silent broadcast.  “What about the body?”  
  
“That’s not something you really want to talk about darling.  You’re asking because you’re hoping it’s not what you know it is.”  He needs a smoke.  “You want me to tell you the truth, but it’s not a truth you wanna hear.”    
  
Nigel frowns and shifts his focus to the skinny boy at his side.  This is when he wishes he could lie; keep the kid from knowing the monster he actually is.  Ignorance is bliss.    
  
But he made a promise.    
  
“I warned you I’m not someone you want to be friends with, Adam.  I wasn’t lying.”  
  
Fleeting blue grey eyes chance partial glances at Nigel’s face before settling on the coffee table, hands fidgeting.  
  
“I want to know.”  _Need to know_.  
  
It’s almost heartbreaking to see the boy need something as cruel as this truth as badly as he does.  Nigel isn’t sure he can cushion something like this, not without twisting it into something it’s not.    
  
“He was a sick bastard no one is going to miss.  Similar height and build as me.”    
  
He keeps his sight steady on Adam to watch the small fleeting ticks of emotion cross his face, the uncertainty of Nigel’s cruelty.  The displeasure of having what he already knew to be true confirmed.    
  
“I found someone worse than me and put them in my home,” Nigel clarifies.  
  
“You killed him.”    
  
It’s said with resignation, nearly betrayal, and Nigel almost wishes he’d lied.   
  
Almost.  
  
“Yeah.”    
  
But not enough to want to take the truth back, not from Adam.  He needs the truth every time.  Nigel will give him exactly what he needs.  
  
Adam knows that sometimes these things can’t be explained.  Bad people do bad things and there isn’t always a reason for why they do it, but Adam doesn’t want Nigel to kill for no reason.    
  
“Why?” he asks.  
  
“I needed a body.  It’s better to use a bad man who deserves to die than a good one who doesn’t.”  
  
“Bad people like you?”  
  
That makes him smile, small and bitter – it’s truer than Adam knows.   
  
It’s probably why Gabi left the way she had, to avoid him and the confrontation that would ended with his boot on Charlie’s throat and a gun aimed between his eyes.  
  
“Yeah, people like me.”    
  
He can see where this is going without needing Adam to spell it out for him.  Tired, he gets up from the couch, stepping toward his bags.  Adam, beautiful brilliant Adam, he doesn’t want a killer in his home.    
  
Nigel isn’t going to make the boy ask him to leave.  Nigel had known since Adam insisted that he stay, that it was only a matter of time before his welcome became unwelcome. It just took a little longer than he’d expected.  Surprisingly, it stings.  He doesn’t want to.    
  
“Do me a favor and give me a call if you find anything on Gabi.  I’ll get a motel.”    
  
There’s one not too far from Adam’s place.  The two duffels will be a little awkward to carry without a car, but he’ll manage.  
  
It’s as Nigel lifts the first heavy bag onto his shoulder and reaches for the other that Adam catches him by surprise, grabbing his wrist to keep the older man from taking his other bag. He neither pulls nor pushes the killer standing by his couch to leave or stay.  He just holds him, keeping his grip tight and still as blue-grey eyes jump between Nigel and the floor.    
  
The fleeting eye contact is more than enough  
  
Nigel meets his flicking gaze in silence and with an understanding that makes Adam’s heart jump in his throat, seeing what he wants and isn’t sure how to say. Nigel sets the duffel bag back down and retakes his seat at Adam’s side, the grip remaining tight around his wrist until he’s seated again, and his understanding confirmed in the comfortable loosening of slender fingers.  
  
 _Stay._  
  
He asks him without words and it’s more than enough for Nigel.   
  
Adam doesn’t like that he kills.  Not that too many do – especially if they’re on the receiving end of a bullet – but despite that, despite the blood on Nigel’s hands…Adam wants him to stay.   It makes his pulse quicken and a bloom of warmth flood his chest.    
  
Adam wants him to stay.  Even better, he doesn’t want to go. He wants to stay.  He wants to feel the needy grasp of his darling Adam keep him prisoner here forever.  He would let him. If he asked, he would let Adam keep him.  
  
Because he needs me, he thinks, a genuine smile stretching across his face.  No, not need, he’s more than capable of taking care of himself – because he wants me.  It means so much more.  
  
Nigel can feel the possessive, obsessive portion of his mind he’d once reserved solely for Gabi twisting to reach out for someone new, someone better.    
  
“I’ll stay,” he says, offering Adam clarity on what he’s won and watching a wide smile pull full lips.  It’s as good as a manacle locking around his throat.  Nigel’s not going anywhere now, not with gifts as sweet as this keeping him here.  He can almost feel the tendrils of his special brand of obsessive love reaching out to wind around them.  
  
“Th-thank you,”  Adam says and is all too pleased that this action seemed to work where his voice has failed him.  He’d failed this once before with Beth.  Trying to explain to her what she meant to him, what he needed…she hadn’t understood him and he’d lost her.  Nigel understands, and Adam wants him to stay.  It’s almost enough to have him offering Nigel his father’s old room.  
  
Maybe that will be the next concession he makes, the next big change.  Maybe in another few days he will offer Nigel his father’s room and experiment with having a roommate.  If it’s anything like having a guest, it’s something he would like very much.    
  
“I don’t like killing, but I like you.  I-I don’t want to see you hurt people, but I want to help you.  I would like you to stay, and I want to continue working with you, Nigel.”  
  
“Okay,” Nigel manages around his smile, proud that Adam put so much effort into vocalizing exactly what it is he wants. “And no violence around you,” he adds.    
  
He moves his hand to slide into Adam’s own and rubs a calloused thumb over the back of his knuckles.  It’s enough to have Adam’s focus turn from the floor to this, watching the easy slide of thumb over the bones in his hand, as Nigel lifts it to thin pursed lips in a kiss.    
  
Nigel watches Adam as Adam watches his hand and the mouth that adores it, moving over soft skin in gentle caresses and feathery touches.  A spark of arousal crawls up Adam’s spine and he feels his cock swell when Nigel brings his mouth to his palm and then the sensitive skin of his inner wrist with a sucking kiss.  His breath stutters and his pulse jumps and he wants to kiss him even more.  
  
“I’m feeling sexually stimulated,”  Adam confesses to the man kissing him.  Roaming lips move from his wrist to his throat. He can feel them smiling against his skin and it’s enough to let Adam know that the comment is not unwelcomed, so he presses on, “Are you feeling sexually stimulated too?”    
  
He hopes it’s a yes.  
  
Nigel’s smile grows until he’s grinning with teeth against the sensitive skin beneath Adam’s ear and he catches the boy around his waist to pull onto his lap, let him feel Nigel’s own swelling erection pressing painfully against the zipper of his jeans.    
  
“Yeah, you’re making me fucking horny gorgeous.”    
  
He pushes a loose curl behind Adam’s ear and pulls him down into a kiss, lets his mouth meet with someone who truly wants him.  Adam kisses back and Nigel fights the urge to just fuck him on the couch, he deserves better than that.  He wants to give him better than that.    
  
“I think I’m falling for you Adam, I like you a lot and I want to like you a lot more.”  Adam’s breath is warm against his mouth, hot little breathless pants ghosting over Nigel’s lips.  “Do you like me?  Would you like to go on a date with me Adam?  I want to date you.” It doesn’t feel like cheating.  It feels like moving on.  It feels good.  “I want to take you someplace special and show you the stars like you’ve never seen them before.  I want to make you smile.”  
  
Adam is smiling now, Nigel doesn’t have to do anything to make him smile more, but he would like to see the stars.    
  
“Can we go now?”  
  
Nigel grins, knows for certain that he’ll need that shower now.   
  
“If you’d like.”  
  
“Can we have sex after?”     
  
It’s nearly enough to make Nigel laugh. So blunt, so beautifully fucking blunt.  He’s falling in love with this boy.   
  
“God, yes.”  
  
TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading~<3
> 
> Your kudos and comments are fighting over who gets the telescope, your bookmarks are making popcorn and packing the car. 
> 
> The author is working on chapter 09 in her fort of boxes~<3


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's finished moving? :'D
> 
> Alright, now life will begin falling back into proper order. Along with my writing. C;
> 
> Thank you all for your endless patience with me while I've been unwillingly enduring a hiatus and thank you all for the AMAZING comments and support for this fic. I'm so, SO happy to hear that you're all enjoying the story so much. I'll do my best not to disappoint with the upcoming chapters. I hope you'll all enjoy the remainder of the fic~<3
> 
> I own nothing.
> 
> Beta read by diedofennui WHO IS TOO AMAZING FOR WORDS!!!! THAAAAAANK YOOOOOOU!!! <3 <3 <3

Nigel, for all his openness toward multiple genders and the various levels of sexual exploration each provides, has never dated someone with a dick before. He’s fucked men before, was fucked once in his youth, but those occasions had come with the exchange of service for money or vice versa. This is different.

Adam isn’t a whore looking for cash or a slut looking for a quickie – he wants to be around Nigel because he wants to be his friend. He likes Nigel. That makes this a date.

So long as that is what Adam wants it to be...it’s definately what Nigel wants it to be.

Nigel chances a side-long glance at the figure staring out the Sedan window at his side. Adam’s watching the passing terrain and darkening sky with interest. They’re still too close to the city to be seeing the Milky Way or shooting stars, but it’s enough to see a difference. Dozens more heavenly bodies are now visible in the sky. The farther away from the city they travel the better the chance that they'll see nebulas. So they leave the orange glow of the city behind them, abandon the safety of street lights and civilization - all in favor of darkness and stars.

"You date much?" Nigel asks after a time.

"No." Adam answers simply.

"Was Beth your only relationship?"

"Yes."

Adam’s distracted by the coming stars, mesmerized by the twinkling dots. It makes Nigel a little jealous, wanting that attention for himself.

He takes his hand off the stick shift to touch Adam’s knee instead, bringing that divided attention from the window to him. Just him. He likes it that way.

"You two have sex?"

"No," Adam answers, watching Nigel's hand, the way his fingers flex against his leg. He likes the feeling, it makes warmth roll in the pit of his stomach, arousal - he knows.

"Beth said that she wanted to go slow. We broke up before we could have sex."

Adam isn’t embarrassed by the question or his answer, but he isn't sure if this is the sort of conversation that he should be embarrassed for having. He knows the topic of arousal had been poorly received with Beth, but Nigel is the one leading the conversation, and he doesn't seem bothered by the direction it's taken. Adam decides to make a point of asking Harlan later about the specific social protocol for conversations like this.

Nigel makes himself take a breath at Adam's admission, ideas beginning to dance in his salacious mind as he tries not to get ahead of himself.

"You a virgin?" he asks.

Adam frowns, concern creeping onto his face with furrowed brows.

"Is that a bad thing?"

He hopes it isn’t. He doesn’t want Nigel to dislike him for his lack of experience. It wasn’t that he doesn’t want to be sexually active, he enjoys masturbation and he’d wanted to have sex with Beth. He’s sure if they hadn’t broken up, eventually they would have had sex, it just hadn’t happened.

"And are we still going to have sex when we get home?"

Nigel grins and feels another pulse twitch his cock with Adam’s confirmation. "Oh no darling, that isn’t a bad thing at all. And yes, we can still have sex if that's what you want."

He offers Adam’s knee another squeeze and slides his hand a little higher, lets his fingers feel the warmth of his inner thigh, listens to the sharp intake of the Adam's breath as he experiences arousal at Nigel’s touch.

It’s a taste, the tip of the iceberg compared to what Nigel hopes to bring him to before the night’s end. Adam’s little gasp at their contact is more of a tease to Nigel than his hand on the kid’s thigh. He can hardly wait to get him home. He wants to feel the slide of long skinny legs wrap around his sides, hands gripping him tight, hot breath against his shoulder…

Blue-grey eyes watch the hand that slides along his pants, stopping just shy of his crotch. He wants Nigel to slide his hand higher. He wonders if he should take it and guide it higher so he'll touch him directly...or would that be pushing social boundaries he doesn’t understand? He supposes it would also be distracting while Nigel is driving. So instead Adam watches the rough fingers gently rubbing his leg through his khakis, enjoying the pressure building in his loins.

"Have you had sexual relations with another man?" Adam asks, shifting in his seat as his cock swells with blood and his arousal becomes harder to ignore.

"Fucked and been fucked," Nigel admits. One was a far more pleasurable experience than the other, something he looks forward to experiencing with Adam – repeatedly. The other Nigel would prefer not to experience again. The one and only partner that took him up the ass didn't use the necessary lube to make the ordeal comfortable. It was an experience that had left Nigel with an appreciation for the importance of preparing one's partner for anal sex. He’s since made damn sure his partners don’t experience the same tearing he had.

"You have nothing to worry about in that department darling. I know how to make things very comfortable for you."

"I’m experienced with anal masturbation."

The admission nearly makes Nigel slam the brakes, mind suddenly filled with images of Adam slipping slim fingers deep inside himself, spreading the tight muscle of his passage with slow curious thrusts – quick airy breaths parting full lips.

Nigel wants to turn the fucking car around.

Nigel’s cock casts its vote by pressing hard against the zipper of his jeans, and it’s by force of will that Nigel keeps driving. He reminds himself that this little expedition is for Adam, to make him happy. It’s a good enough reason for Nigel to ignore his developing blue-balls.

"Would you like me to stretch you before intercourse?" Adam asks matter of factly.

This offer takes Nigel by surprise just as much as Adam's previous masturbatory admission, and it takes him an extra second to process the question before he responds.

"You…prep me?"

"Mmmhm," Adam assents.

Despite the intimacy of the conversation, it still isn’t enough to have Adam blushing, practicality taking precedence over social mores, but Nigel can distinctly see the barest shift in Adam’s trousers.

"I have a tube of lubricant in my bedside drawer," he continues helpfully.

Nigel is nearly lost for words. He never would have thought to offer bottoming for Adam, never mind the idea that the kid would assume that Nigel would be the receiving party. He’s sure there are a dozen reasons why they are both be on equal topping ground, and that the reasons make perfect sense in Adam’s unique mind – but not a damn one of them comes to Nigel in this moment. He’s pretty damn sure personality and body type play some role in the game of ‘who gets to top and who gets to bottom’ and if not …for now he'll stick to simple open communication.

"How about I top?" he offers, "seeing as I’m the one who’s fucked before."

"Oh," Adam says in consideration.

That makes sense. It's a reasonable suggestion, though Adam still retains the opinion that he could perform just as well. He has adequate enough knowledge of the act to make sure Nigel enjoys himself despite Adam's own lack of experience. He nods anyway.

"Okay."

"Are you afraid of taking cock?" Nigel prompts, pulling the Sedan onto the shoulder and flipping on his four-ways. He hasn’t seen another car on the road for a while, but there's always the chance someone will come along, and he doesn’t need their ride being rear-ended. "We don’t have to fuck if you don’t want to."

He slips off his seat belt and turns to better face the new object of his desire, the one suddenly and unexpectedly filling the growing void, taking the place of something that had once been special to him and has now turned sour. Adam is hard to make out in the darkness, a handsome silhouette in the fading light.

"I want to," Nigel assures him. He wants to make sure that Adam understands his meaning. "But we don’t have to fuck."

He slips his fingers into Adam’s hair and is pleased when he follows the guiding touch and closes the space between them.

Adam's mouth is soft; lips as silky as a woman's and just as full. This time without the lipstick that usually smears Nigel's cheeks or leaves rings on his dick. And Adam's mouth is just as hot when he opens up for him and Nigel slips his tongue inside. If the car wasn’t so fucking small and awkward he would drag Adam onto his lap, spend the first part of their evening sucking face. As it is, the attempt would most likely be uncomfortable for Adam, limbs catching on the shift stick and the steering wheel digging into his back.

"If I was afraid," Adam says carefully in response to Nigel's question, "I wouldn’t penetrate myself when I masturbate. I enjoy prostate stimulation."

He wonders if maybe he's missed another social cue, but if he has, it doesn’t appear to be anything detrimental. Nigel is kissing him. As far as Adam knows, people don’t kiss other people that they’re upset with, so everything must be going well despite the offer to refrain from intercourse.

Nigel really wants to lay this boy out and fuck him on the car’s hood, grease him with spit and make love to him under the stars. He wonders if Adam would like that, staring at stars over Nigel’s shoulder while he’s bought to his peak again and again and again…

Nigel likes the idea. He’ll have to make arrangements to drive out this way again with a blanket and a bottle of lube.

"Darling, if you keep talking like that we’re not going to make it out of this car," Nigel purrs, catching Adam’s bottom lip between his teeth to suck and draw another breathy noise from the beautiful boy. "I very much want to touch you." He demonstrates his point by sliding a hand up Adam’s leg, knee to thigh. "Jesus…" he hisses when curious fingers touch back, reaching to spread over the growing bulge in Nigel’s jeans. Adam kneads him gently, feeling the way Nigel’s cock presses back against his hand.

He watches the way Nigel closes his eyes and knits his brows. It’s similar enough to an expression of exasperation that he has to ask: "Is this good?"

For a instant Nigel feels guilty for not having expressed his growing pleasure in a way that let Adam know it wasn’t just good, it was fucking amazing. He opens his eyes to half-mast to reassure him: "It’s fucking fantastic."

Then he thinks to hell with tangled legs and the cramped space and drags Adam closer to sit in his lap.

Adam makes the most beautiful, undignified sound of surprise as he’s resituated in Nigel’s lap, allowing his mouth to settle back to Nigel’s without protest.

Nigel loves it. He loves the way Adam’s lithe legs settle on either side of his, loves the quiet coos of desire that escape him as he holds him close and tastes him, and he loves the way he moves – Adam shifts beneath his hands, eager and needy without knowing exactly what to do with himself. Nigel can’t help the hard on it’s giving him.

He follows the trail of Adam’s spun-from-silk curls down his back to his rounded ass, cupping him. Adam is making noises against him, his growing erection pressed against Nigel's stomach.

He wants to fuck him and he wants to fuck him hard – hear those needy sounds on breaths shuttering with pleasure. He wants to leave Adam sated and spent and longing entirely for him. But more than that he wants Adam's first time to be something better than a car fuck. "We can’t do this without lube," Nigel says, bringing their grinding to a stop without leaving Adam wondering if he’s done something wrong. "I don’t want to hurt you gorgeous, that means waiting until we get home."

Adam frowns, flushed and panting, looking entirely debauched, "We have to stop?"

"Just until we get home," Nigel tells him, and he isn’t entirely sure where he finds the restraint. He combs a few loose curls back from Adam’s face and can’t help his wolfish grin at the boy's neediness.

"O-okay."

He watches the way Adam bites his lip against the pressure of his cock rubbing on his pants, and Nigel realizes that he’s given Adam his first tease. All their restraint will be worth it. By the time they get home, Adam will be needy and wanting, entirely Nigel’s.

The reverse will also certainly be true...

His cock gives another twitch of protest at the audacity of walking away from Adam's needy breathlessness, but Nigel ignores it, forces himself out of the car to pop the trunk. He doesn’t miss the awed gasp from Adam as he gets out of the passenger side and looks up at the blanket of stars. It makes the denial worth it.

"Nigel…we can see so many!"

Adam knew, logically; he knew that outside the city limits they'd be better able see the endless masses of twinkling lights, that without the city's light pollution brightening the sky they could spot constellations and the haze of milky-way galaxy…but knowing is different from seeing and Adam has never seen so many stars all at once. Not like this.

Nigel looks up into the veil and smiles. He’s always liked stars, not nearly as much as Adam, and honestly he knows shit about them beyond the constellations, but he’s always liked them.

"You want your telescope?" he asks.

He’s already lifting the expensive device out of the Sedan and walking it over. Adam is already too excited for words.

Nigel hadn’t known he’d be this happy, it makes him feel good to know that he’s the cause of Adam’s joy. It replaces the twist of lust in his gut with something softer.

Adam is already setting up the telescope, twisting nobs and setting the tripod for stargazing in this area. Nigel catches Adam around the waist and holds him close as he peeks through the telescope, almost as enamored by the stars as Nigel is with him.

"Tell me about the stars you’re looking at darling. I want to know about all of them."

Nigel doesn’t think he’ll ever get sick of listening to Adam’s enthusiasm. As beautiful as Gabi’s cello in his own way, he could listen to him talk for hours.

He does – watching Adam as Adam watches the stars and he’s more beautiful than any of the little lights he describes.

He tells Nigel about the ancient balls of gas that burn around their galaxy – the ones light-years away, he names the super giants and white dwarves and comets making up the night sky, and Nigel encourages his endless enthusiasm with the gentle caress of fingers drawing circles on the skin of his stomach under his cotton shirt, kisses teased beneath his ear.

"Incredible," he murmurs against skin softer than Gabi's, more focused on the boy beneath his hands than the stars above them.

"I thought you might enjoy hearing about the Three Kings," Adam explains, "you said you liked constellations, and they are the stars that make up Orion’s Belt."

Nigel is sure the boy is proud of himself, pleased to have found a topic the man drawing circles into his skin can enjoy with him. Nigel almost feels guilty tilting Adam's focus back to the moment.

"No darling. You, you’re more incredible than the stars."

He wraps his arm around Adam’s waist and presses the boys slighter frame firm against his larger one. There’s no resistance as Adam settles back against Nigel, letting him tilt his face back to kiss the corner of his mouth.

When Adam smiles it makes Nigel feel like he's won the damn lotto.

"Oh…" Adam turns to meet Nigel in another kiss, "would you like to go have sex now?"

Honestly, Nigel could marry this boy, "I’d be fucking delighted."

Adam fills the drive back with all the facts about the Three Kings and other constellations he thinks Nigel might be interested in. He carries a near musical rhythm he seems to gain when discussing his passions, and Nigel wonders if he could ever be the source of that enthusiasm? Could he ever bring life to Adam’s voice and animate his face? Maybe even thoughts of the two of them together, as a pair? He’d like that, he thinks. It would be a trophy, like winning Adam’s smile had been tonight.

It’s something he desperately wants, and is willing to work to gain.

Nigel parks the Sedan more carefully than he might his own car, or anything he may have had in Bucharest. He carries the telescope inside while Adam gets the door, heading in together. In any other situation, Nigel would have dropped the piece of equipment to be properly put away later – after their fun – but he has the suspicion that Adam would lose interest in sex if Nigel were to abandon his telescope on the couch.

Instead he carefully brings the telescope into the bedroom to be repositioned at the window while Adam gets a glass of water. Hours of talking beyond his usual comfort level has made his voice scratchy. Nigel privately considers that Adam will be even more hoarse when he's done with him and decides to keep the thought to himself.

The telescope is set facing out the window between the buildings. Nigel has faith in Adam’s ability to make it focus on something properly at a later time, one that won’t interrupt Nigel's need to tear off his clothes.

"You ready darling?" Nigel purrs from across the apartment.

He certainly is, and he’s been perfectly patient tonight. He walks to the kitchen to collect his prize, expecting to find his Adam at the sink and instead discovering him sitting at his laptop, brow furrowed as he focuses on the screen.

"Your wife…is in town," Adam says. Nigel can see he’s upset. "One of your aliases just checked in at the Motel 6."

Adam doesn’t know what to do with himself, whether he should continue with their evening plans or if Nigel’s visit is suddenly over in favor of hunting down his wife.

"She must have allowed Charlie to use your i.d. card…probably thought you would be looking for her with one of her identities and not your own."

"Probably," Nigel agrees.

He stares at the screen – one of his many names standing bright against the monitor. He hadn’t thought Adam would enter his aliases as well as hers when he’d handed him the list. He should be grateful that he did. He should be kicking himself for not checking his own pile of fake ID’s after she’d left. He’d grabbed them, but he hadn’t thought to check which were missing, they were still in a pile in his suitcase.

"Are you...?" Adam swallows, the question trailing off, too hard to verbalize.

Nigel doesn’t let him finish the question. Reaching around the younger man he closes the laptop.

"Come on babe, you said we could have some fun."

He takes Adam by the hand and tugs him to his feet, pulling him after, away from the kitchen and into his room, to his small twin bed.

"What about Gabi?"

Adam's so confused in this, lost in the idea that Nigel’s entire purpose for being there has come to fruition, but Nigel's choosing to ignore it.

"Aren’t you going to look for your wife?"

Nigel tugs Adam down onto the bed and smiles at the eyes that never meet his own for long, they’re focused on his shoulder, and that’s enough for Nigel, so long as Adam's focused on him.

"I found something better."

OoOoO

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading~<3
> 
> Your kudos are playing with Adam's telescope, your comments are shamelessly cooing over Nigel's choice.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS IT PEOPLE!!! SMUTTY SMUT SMUT!!!! 
> 
> Probably the hardest chapter to write this entire story, I think I went over this and stepped away from it three times trying to make it reasonably accurate to their personalities. XD
> 
> Thank you all my lovely readers for sticking with me this far and for reading and kudoing and loving this fic. It makes to so unbelievably happy to know that this story is being appreciated so very much. Thank you~ <3 <3 <3
> 
> This story is beta read by diedofennui who makes me want to week with the brilliance of her work. Thank you darling~<3
> 
> I own nothing.

“Something better?”  

 

“Oh yes darling.”

 

Nigel is over him, knees on either side of Adam’s legs, hands framing his face.  Despite their close proximity, Nigel isn’t forcing him to meet his eyes, happy to look at Adam while he focuses on his lips.  He smiles and brushes a stray curl back from blue grey eyes, closes the distance between them – bring their mouths no more than a breath apart.  

 

“I’ve found something much, much better.”

 

“What did you find?”  

 

Adam’s heart is fluttering, it’s the kind of palpitation Adam knows come with excitement and arousal, and he really _is_ excited.  He really likes the way Nigel is leaning over him, touching him with his body and hands, the way his lips cover Adam’s when he leans up and meets his hovering mouth in a kiss.

 

“You’re too smart for questions like that Adam, you should know what I found:  Something special in someone special – someone perfect.”  

 

Nigel smells good, Adam notes, different from the soaps that he uses – cologne he thinks, maybe something from Gabi?  It’s stronger this close, more noticeable than when they’d been watching the stars, but in a good way, and not at all like the cigarette smoke Adam had expected.

 

He slips his arms around Nigel’s shoulders and feels another roll of arousal twist through him as strong arm slips beneath him in return, holding him close.

 

“Your ‘special someone’ is non-existent,”  he rebuts, “because no one is perfect. It’s impossible for a person to be perfect. There is no standardization for perf-.”

 

Nigel ceases the coming torrent of words with another kiss, fingers splaying through Adam’s hair to feel satiny curls as he brings their mouths together and Adam parts full lips to let Nigel in.  The small admittance is enough to encourage him, Nigel’s knees sliding out beneath him to blanket the body beneath his, pressing his groin against Adam’s and grinding down against him.

 

Adam’s reaction is immediate, a sharp pleasure pulsing through him and he can’t help the noise he gasps into Nigel’s mouth – another press of hips and he does it again.  Adam grips Nigel tighter, holding him closer, fingers clinging to his shirt as Nigel gives Adam pleasurable friction again and again.

 

“N-Nigel!”  

 

He pants the name against thin lips and bucks against the body above his own, grinds back against the man keeping him pinned to the bed.  It forces a sound from his tormentor above him, a deep guttural groan.

 

“You’re perfect Adam,” Nigel whispers, wetting his lips as he finds the skin behind Adam’s ear to adore with kisses. “Flaws are some of the things that make people perfect – and you?  You’re fucking perfect.”  A broad hand slides under Adam’s shirt, pushing the fabric up for calloused fingers to slip over the sensitive nub of his nipple.  It makes Adam’s breath jump, and he jerks upward at the touch, pressing into it.

 

“Perfect for me,” Nigel says again.

 

Adam wants to feel good, he wants to enjoy the hot swirls building in his stomach and the swelling of his erection, but he suddenly feels guilty. Has he been dishonest with Nigel this whole time by hiding his Aspergers? Implying that he’s someone he’s not – letting Nigel think he’s…perfect?  

 

“I-I’m not perfect,” Adam tries to protest.

 

He closes his eyes against the teasing sensation on his chest and feel’s the rasp of Nigel’s day old growth against his jaw, mouth claiming the skin of his throat in nipping kisses.  He wants him so bad, he really, really wants to keep this and have it forever and feel this good with Nigel again.  

 

“I have Aspergers,” he says quickly, louder than he intends. He wants to tell the truth before he loses his nerve and thinks it through, before Nigel can get mad at him for lying. He already asked Nigel to be honest with him, he owes him the same.

 

Nigel’s mouth doesn’t stop teasing Adam’s flesh, talented fingers continuing their pleasing rub against his chest. Nigel is still over him, still kissing him.  

 

“I know darling,” he murmurs against the soft skin beneath his own, tone still soft as he adores him, licks his way down to Adam’s other nipple.  He takes the puckered skin into his mouth and Adam is crying out again, grinding up against Nigel’s stomach for much needed friction.

 

“Beth told me,” Nigel clarifies softly.

 

Adam opens his eyes, stares at the ceiling, confusion settling at the edge of lust.

 

“You’ve…known?”

 

“I have, I do.”  

 

He nips the raised nub he’s been tonguing into his mouth then releases it, leaving the skin to cool against the air, blowing on it to make Adam shiver before turning his attention lower, continuing his descent down the lithe body beneath him.  

 

“I still think you’re perfect Adam, Aspergers and all.”  

 

His hands slide lower too, following the mouth down his torso in light skimming touches that settle on the clasp on his pants.  Adam pushes himself up onto his elbows and watches as Nigel slips the button free from his khakis and pulls the fabric from his hips.

 

“You…like me more than your wife?”  Adam asks, watching as pants and briefs are pulled from him in a single fluid motion, slipped down his legs and over his feet to be dismissed onto the floor. Oh no...not on the floor.  

 

“Laundry goes in the hamper!”  he says all at once, immediately regretting his tendency to blurt exactly what he’s thinking.

 

“I promise I’ll put it in the hamper when we’re done.”  Nigel assures him with a catlike smile, less interested in clothes and more on the swollen flesh he’s freed.  Adam’s erection is smaller than his own, but impressive in its own right, interestingly circumcised.

 

Unfortunately, Nigel’s reassurance it isn’t enough.  

 

“It needs to go in the hamper,”  Adam protests again, knowing it will bother him if the pants lay there out of place. He wiggles to get up and put them away, but his conviction is entirely lost when Nigel closes his mouth over his erection and he swallows him down.  

 

Lips parting on a moan Adam arches against the bed, his fingers finding purchase in Nigel’s disheveled hair.  He was wrong; he no longer cares about the laundry, he cares about Nigel and what he’s doing with his mouth and tongue, and he doesn’t want him to stop.  He’s never felt this before, another person’s skin pressed against him in this way – touched and caressed and swallowed.  It’s overloading him and he doesn’t want it to stop.

 

Nigel hums around the flesh sitting heavy on his tongue and slides his hands up, spreading Adam’s thighs, feeling the soft smooth flesh beneath his fingers as Adam cries out.  He’s pulling Nigel’s hair, bucking into his mouth and Nigel is forced to move broad hands from slender thighs to skinny hips to keep Adam still, to stop the boy from choking him on his cock.  

 

The new restraint has Adam crying Nigel’s name again, frustrated with the hands that keep him in place.

 

It’s like music to Nigel’s ears. He bobs his head twice and hollows his cheeks as he slips Adam from his mouth, enjoying more of those needy sounds when Adam’s cock is kissed by cold air and the heat from Nigel’s mouth is lost.  He grins, wiping his mouth on his sleeve to take in the boy lying desperate beneath him.  He’s beautiful, skin shining in a thin coat of sweat, spit slicked cock arching back against his stomach, a blush coloring his cheeks with arousal.  

 

“You’re too damn beautiful.”  

 

“Is that a compliment or a complaint?” Adam asks.  

 

“It’s a compliment darling.”

 

He watches Nigel in his peripheral pull his shirt overhead and toss the garment to land with Adam’s pants in a pile on the floor.  He doesn’t like the laundry landing in piles on the floor, it does bother him, but for now he would like to finish having sex before he deals with it.  He really wants to cum.

 

Nigel gets up long enough to strip his own jeans and boxers; sight locked on the body spread and waiting for him on the bed.  He’s beautiful and needy and Nigel is feeling something more than lust when he looks at Adam. This isn’t just sex. He’s not sure it was ever meant to be.

 

“Oh. Thank you.”

 

“Pardon?”  Nigel grins, rejoining his lover on the bed, crawling back up the length of his lean body.  It’s a smile he can’t hide, unable to prevent the mirth that Adam inspires in him.

 

“You gave me a compliment, people say ‘thank you’ when they’re given a compliment.”

 

Laughing, Nigel strips the boy of his shirt.  He isn’t wrong.  

 

“Where did you say that lube was again darling?”

 

Adam isn’t entirely sure what he had said to make Nigel laugh, but leaves the mystery alone to twist beneath him and reach into the bedside table.

 

“Do you need me to stretch myself?”

 

Nigel is going to greatly enjoy this relationship if these are the offerings he can look forward to enjoying in the sack.  It is a tempting offer.  But Nigel wants to be the one Adam is focused on tonight.  He wants to be the only one bringing pleasure to Adam – his mouth, his hands, his cock.

 

“No darling, I’ll get that.”  

 

He takes the bottle from him and steals a pillow from the head of the bed, slipping the cushion beneath Adam’s hips before he can protest the misuse of pillows.  

 

To Nigel’s relief he doesn’t.  Instead he leans back against the cushion to watch as his knees are parted and Nigel opens the bottle.

 

It makes Adam’s stomach flip, something winding tight deep in his gut as Nigel slicks his fingers.  Nigel, for his part watches Adam’s face, noticing how the boy’s eyes follow his fingers. And he carefully slicks each finger before leaning down between Adam’s thighs, kissing the juncture of his hip and spreading his cheeks.

 

“I want to make you feel good,” he reassures, touching a finger to Adam’s opening. And already Adam thinks it feels so different, having another’s fingers here, so different from just touching himself.

 

“I want you to show me how good I make you feel,” Nigel whispers against his thigh. “ I don’t want you to hold anything back.  I want to hear every fucking moan.”

 

Adam nods, no longer able to properly see the hand that’s touching him, finger circling his opening.  But Nigel still has his attention, bright eyes fixated on his mouth.  

 

It’s a focus that elicits a smile from Nigel as he breaches him.

 

Pressure builds, the  finger pushing against his rim and then Nigel’s slipping inside, a shallow dip to ease him open, and Adam’s heart is hammering, a bead of pre-cum pearling on the head of his cock as he watches Nigel’s hand move between his legs.  

 

“Relax darling.”

 

Nigel is kissing him again, his free hand running the length of Adam’s leg, slipping the boy’s slim leg over his own broad shoulder.

 

Adam nods again, spreading his legs wider as he tries to relax.  It’s more difficult with another person than when he’s alone in his room, but he doesn’t want these feelings to stop.

 

“That’s it babe, that’s perfect,” Nigel praises, face turned into the soft skin of Adam’s leg, gaze up to his face – kissing  him, watching him – waiting for the moment he finds that magic little nub deep inside that will have him writhing.

 

Nigel adds a second finger and slowly sheaths them to the knuckle, twists and scissors as he works his darling open.  He smiles when the smaller man makes a sound – a heady gasp that goes straight to Nigel’s cock.

 

“Oh!” Adam’s fingers grip the sheets and Nigel knows he’s found his mark, grins as he presses again against his prostate.  “N-Ni!”  His toes curl, the leg loosely draped over Nigel’s shoulder pulling him down, Adam’s heel digging into his back as he tries to bring Nigel closer.

 

It’s exactly what he wants.

 

“Keep making those sounds for me gorgeous.”

 

Nigel allows himself to be pulled forward, bracing on his forearm as he takes Adam’s nipple into his mouth again, sucking and teasing the little nub as he adds a third finger and brushes the boy’s prostate with every other stretching thrust.

 

Adam doesn’t think he could stop making noises if he tried.  Not with the way Nigel is stimulating his prostate.  Not with him catching his nipple between teeth to tug and suck.  It has hot coils winding tight at the base of his spine and clear drops dripping down his cock.

 

Adam’s fingers grip tightly enough that Nigel wonders if he’s going to find bruises in the morning. It’s a nice thought, made nicer still by Adam’s whimpers as he withdraws calloused fingers and leaves him suddenly empty.  Wide pleading eyes stare to the ceiling for help and Nigel is forced to take a moment to appreciate the view.

 

“Are you ready darling?”  He kisses soft, gasping lips, “I’m going to fuck you now.”

 

“I, I believe I’m adequately stretched…”  Adam nods.

 

“And are you emotionally ready?  Are you comfortable?”

 

“Oh, yes!” Adam says enthusiastically, eyes searching the ceiling as he smiles, “I would really like to cum.”  

 

Nigel kisses him again. “That’s exactly what I want to hear.”  

 

Squirting more lube into his palm, Nigel slicks his dick and slips Adam’s legs around his hips.  He’s eager to fill him, desperate to feel the tight passage of this boy choke his cock.  But he still doesn’t want to rush this.  He wants to make it last and he wants Adam to feel so good he comes to Nigel for more.

 

Nigel hopes that he’s the type to ask for more.

 

“I like this,” Adam tells him contentedly, wrapping his legs tight around Nigel’s waist, locking his heels at his back as he feels the head of Nigel’s cock press against his hole.  It feels big, wider than his fingers, like Adam will tear taking the cock inside him.  He knows that isn’t true.  He’s been adequately stretched, but it doesn’t stop him from wrapping his arms tight around Nigel’s neck and holding him close as pressure builds and he feels the head breach, the length of his erection sheathing inside him in a single smooth thrust.

 

Nigel moans, cups Adam’s curly head with lube-sticky fingers and holds him close, lets him bury his face into Nigel’s shoulder and pant ragged gasps into his skin, cling as he adjusts to the new girth inside of him.

 

“You feel so good Adam, so fucking good,”  he praises as he kisses his crown and experiments with a roll of hips to move his cock deep inside of his boy.  It has Adam arching against him, another ragged gasp pulling from him as Nigel shifts.  It’s beautiful, so fucking beautiful he has to do it again.

 

He shifts and Adam arches back, eyes open and mouth wide as Nigel thrusts. “Is that your sweet spot darling?”  He kisses him again, along the line of his open lips and pushes to fill him, feel the desperate bite of blunt nails threatening to break skin, bony heels digging into his back.  He wants to tease him more, take this slower than he is and draw Adam’s pleasure out until he’s begging for it – but he feels so good, so tight and slick and ready and Nigel really can’t wait any longer, not with how his tight passage squeezes around his dick.

 

“I-It’s-”  Adam is cut off before he can finish, as Nigel finds his prostate again with another rolling thrust.  It makes him whimper and cling tighter. “- my prostate!” he shouts.  

 

He doesn’t know what a “sweet spot” is, but he wants Nigel to know exactly what he’s hitting. And the next moment when he rakes his nails down the length of the older man’s back, he knows he needs to apologize, but his voice isn’t working the way he wants it to, not with Nigel making him feel so full and so good and whispering praise into his hair as he pushes into him.  

 

This is more than Adam had been anticipating, so much more, better than the actors in the porn DVD’s had implied.

 

“You bet your gorgeous ass it’s your prostate,”  Nigel groans, captures Adam’s open mouth in a deep kiss and sneaking a hand between them to grab the boy’s bouncing cock, pumping the twitching flesh until he feels the smooth body beneath him go rigid, hot spurts of cum shooting across his chest.  He swallows down Adam’s moans and ignores his stinging back.  Adam has clawed the skin red and raw but Nigel does nothing to stop it as he holds him close and slows their pace to a deep rocking until he feels his own peak creep up on him and he follows his lover into blissful end.  

 

Nigel stays still for several long minutes after they’re done, buried to the hilt and laid out over Adam.  He doesn’t move until the Adam begins squirming beneath him, looking for comfort or distance or a little less weight blanketing over him.  Nigel takes the hint and with a groan pulls his flaccid cock free, rolling off the boy and to his side.  “You were brilliant darling.”  He needs a smoke, but isn’t in the mood to leave his beautiful boy just yet.

 

“Was I?”  Adam smiles. It’s good to know. “Even though I hurt your back?”

 

“Definitely.”

 

He kisses him again and works the ruined blankets back from clean sheets to tuck them both under.

 

“Will you stay in my bed for the night?” Adam asks.  

 

He’s lying with his back to Nigel so he can feel the man’s fuzzy chest pressed against him.  A strong arm drapes over his waist. He smiles as Nigel lays his head on his folded arm to give Adam the pillow, settling in to stay the night.  

 

“I’d fucking love to.”

 

OoOoO

 

The unholy chime of Nigel’s cheap burner drives through his head like an ice pick.  It forces the man to pry one honey colored eye open and abandon warm sex-scented skin for the buried phone in the pile of clothes at the bed’s end.  With the barest restraint he looks at the phone instead of throwing it.  He’s glad he did.

 

“Nigel?”  Adam’s soft coo has a pang of guilt chewing at his stomach.  He clicks to answer before another ring goes through.  He should have known who was calling, he’s only made one phone call since getting the damn thing.  

 

“Go back to sleep babe.  I’ll only be a minute.”  He tucks the blanket back around skinny shoulders and watches grey blue eyes offer two sleepy blinks of resistance before slipping shut in sleep.

 

Nigel doesn’t dare risk waking him again, not this fucking early in the morning. He takes the phone outside the bedroom and into the kitchen.

 

“Darko?”

 

“Babe?” The voice in the phone teases, “Who the fuck is that?  You already over Gabi?”

 

Nigel sneers. “No.”  

 

He won’t be over her for months, years maybe, but that doesn’t mean he is going to turn away something good and loving and beautiful.  She’s sure as fuck moved on.  Why shouldn’t he?  Doesn’t mean he doesn’t still hurt, isn’t grieving. He is.  

 

“None of your fucking business, he adds., “It’s seven thirty in the fucking morning.”  Amazing sex and four hours of sleep aren’t making him feel well rested.  “You thought this was a good time to fucking call back?  I called you yesterday.”

 

“Yeah, I saw that.  I was busy.”

 

“I fucking gathered.”  He finds his bags where he’d abandoned them by the couch and digs out a pair of jeans and pack of smokes.  His zippo is in his other pants in the bedroom, so he grabs the pack of matches he keeps stored in the side pocket.  “Busy?  That mean you got something for me?”  

 

He shoves open the kitchen window and hopes the smell won’t linger if he blows it out the screen, lighting up to relieve a little of his irritability with a puff of nicotine.

 

“Everything.”  Darko says, finality in his voice. “It’s ready.”

 

Nigel smiles around the filter of his cigarette.  He walks the few short steps back to the laptop left running on the table and opens it, looking down at the blinking address of his wife.  

 

“I’ll get my suit.”

  
TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading~<3
> 
> Your kudos are cuddling Adam, your comments are helping Nigel pick out a tie.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone~<3
> 
> We're getting close to the end of the story now and it's been wonderful fic to share with such amazing readers. Thank you all for reading and commenting and enjoying this story as much as you all have~<3 <3 <3
> 
> The story has been extended to 11 chapters instead of 10 so I hope you'll all enjoy the extra chapter and will keep an eye peeled for the sequel. C:
> 
> As always a huge thank you to diedofennui, the woman is a blessing to the writing world. She sure as hell makes my life easier. <3
> 
> I own nothing.

Adam wakes to the unfamiliar sound of the front door closing hard.  It’s a sound he had grown accustomed to when living with his father, but now, with his father gone, it comes as a surprise once again. The alien noise has him blinking awake to the feel of sticky sheets and warm sunshine.  
   
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Adam stretches over soft cotton and inwardly groans at the deep unfamiliar aches in his lower body. They’re not terribly unpleasant.  Nothing he would actively seek to replicate, but certainly nothing that would deter him from wanting to sleep with Nigel again either.  
   
Blinking himself fully awake, Adam looks at the neon numbers of his alarm clock and feels the creeping upset that comes with a day starting wrong.  
   
It’s late, far too late for Adam to be beginning his day; nearly noon and he hasn’t gotten out of bed yet – all without the excuse of being sick.  He won’t be able to go about his usual morning routine now. This foreign awakening means that he'll move straight into his lunch time routine, and he'll need a shower beforehand that will just make things worse.  
   
Frustrated, knowing it's something he can’t change now, Adam turns his attention to the next thing not right in his life.  Nigel is gone.  
   
“Nigel?”  
   
He’d asked him to stay after sex and Nigel had accepted...Adam had felt Nigel’s sleep-slow breaths rustling his hair as he drifted off. So where has he gone?  
   
Getting out of bed with a twist of unfamiliar pain, Adam strips his bedding, distributing it and the abandoned clothing into the proper baskets for cleaning before making his bed with fresh sheets and going to shower.  
   
He supposes he’ll feel a little better about his off-kilter day once he’s eaten.  It will be easier to focus on treating the remainder of the day as normal.  He will plan and eat his dinner at an appropriate time, address his new line of work with Nigel…he isn’t entirely sure where things lie now that Nigel’s wife has been found.  Nigel had asked Adam to find Gabi, and he had. Now, he isn’t sure of his next move. Should he continue to watch her, broadening his search as she moves, or is Nigel satisfied?  
   
He really needs to speak with Nigel.  
   
 _“Maybe he’s gone to find Gabi?”_  
  
The thought doesn’t sit right with him, though he isn’t entirely sure why, he just knows he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t want Nigel to go after Gabi any more, he wants him to stay here, at home.  
   
Staring at his reflection, Adam searches his own face as he reflects on what he might be feeling. He practices like this sometimes, in the mirror, seeing if he can read the expression on his own face for a clue of what lies inside. He knows that neurotypicals can read each other, understand social queues and facial expressions effortlessly with just a glance. And right now staring back at him is the same face that has met him in the mirror for his twenty-seven years. Even on his own face, pinpointing an emotion with a label is a mystery. Perhaps in the whole of his life Adam will never been able to accomplish such a feat with anyone, not even himself?  
   
When he thinks of Nigel now, seeking out Gabi, he feels a twisting sensation building inside him, like it wants to explode. Anger and frustration.  
   
What he can’t understand is _“why”_?  Why is he feeling this way?  Is he upset? Hurt? Jealous? It's irrational in a way that frustrates him further.  
   
Adam's father had once explained it to him by making the comparison of closing your eyes or covering your ears and losing a sense. Adam lives and copes with an emotional blindness. He has emotions, he understands that other people have them to, he just can't easily narrow them down to cause and effect, give them names, or recognize the situations and actions that cause them. He is grasping in the dark and hoping he can communicate what he's feeling to the outside world, and that the outside world finds a way to communicate back.  
   
He’ll find Nigel, he thinks, explain the best he can the tangle inside. Nigel will have a name for what Adam is feeling.  
   
Mind made up, turmoil tamped down, he dresses for the day and heads toward the kitchen for breakfast.  Which brings him to another conundrum.  Breakfast or lunch?  
   
Despite the late hour, it just doesn’t feel right to have his customary sandwich, he eats cereal when he wakes up, not sandwiches. But it’s also nearly noon. There's a crackling sort of sensation in the back of his head like static as the tension swims through him again. He berates himself internally for becoming unhinged by foodstuffs, stares between the All Bran and bag of bread, and finally prepares himself a bowl.  
   
Setting the cereal carefully on the table, Adam is surprised to find his laptop partly open. It definitely shouldn’t be open. He had watched Nigel close it before tugging Adam away to have sex.  
   
He places his bowl to the side and tilts open the screen. The opened tab is still on the local Motel’s account in Nigel's stolen name. "Paid in full" and "account closed" are brightly listed next to the name, the room number once again showing "unoccupied."  
   
Gabi's moved on and Nigel's gone too.  
   
Panic creeps into the edge of his mind and he searches for the square of paper towel that Nigel had left for him. He digs the Yellow Pages telephone book off of the shelf, the carefully folded paper tucked into the inside cover. Dialing, trying to calm his breathing, he waits.  
   
The phone rings twice before cutting to voice mail, a mechanical voice informing Adam the number in question is unavailable and to leave a message after the tone.   
  
“Nigel?  Where are you?  Why aren’t you here?  Are you coming back?”   
  
He looks to the laptop screen again. "Unoccupied" seeming to pulse on the screen.    
  
“Did you…have you gone after Gabi?  Am I…am I not something better?”  
   
_Had he lied?_  
   
“You – you promised you wouldn’t lie Nigel.  You said I’m something better.”  
   
_Maybe he's coming back?_  
   
"I’m sorry,” he blurts quickly as way of explanation, hanging up the phone before he says something that might drive Nigel away...the way he drove Beth away.  He doesn’t want to risk that now.  But he doesn’t want Nigel going to Gabi either.  
   
There’s too much. Anger, fear, frustration, worry; it’s overloading him, making him panic.  Adam wraps his arms around himself the way his father had taught him when things became too much and closes his eyes and just breaths.  One deep, slow breath after another, trying to calm himself before a panic attack sets in.  
   
He doesn’t like this.  
   
He doesn’t like all these feelings and all this chaos in his mind.  He wants it to go away.  Breath steady several minutes later, he lets his arms fall, fists clenching and unclenching as he paces the floor instead, tries to sort the tangle in the pit of his stomach.  
   
He wishes again that Nigel were here to help him sort out these feelings, but Adam knows better than to try calling again. He’s left a message. Nigel will call him back once he’s received the message. It's what people do.  
   
Swallowing hard, he turns his attention back toward the computer.  
   
There is something he can do while he waits...  
   
Sitting back down by the forgotten cereal, Adam brings up the master list of fake ID’s and begins another scan. Neither Nigel, nor his assortment of false identities, pop onto his screen beyond the latest check out at Motel 6.  
   
He does however find a purchase of flowers made by Gabi Ibanescu.  
   
Opening a separate window Adam quickly searches for the flower shop online and reviews the assortment of bouquets that match the provided credit card charge.  He frowns when the cost matches those of the funeral arrangements.  
   
 _“Someone she knows has died.”_  
  
The arrangement is similar in style to the ones that had been purchased for his father's funeral. Perhaps one of her parents has passed away as well?  Adam's unsure of his feelings on this note. Gabi's hurt Nigel, and since Adam holds no societal obligations toward the woman, he decides to put it out of his mind. Gabi's loss holds no meaning for him.  
  
His search at its limit, he rises from the table to search out his personal laptop and favorite DVD of the Actors Studio. He can pour some new cereal and settle in to eat it properly.  
Walking through the living room, his steps pause when he happens again on the newspaper he had seen Nigel reading the day he was laid off, the inky picture of an apartment fire visible over its folded edge.  It brings another theory to mind he hadn’t considered before.  
   
Adam chews his lip as he reads the headline and listed name of suspected deceased: “Roland Simms…”  
   
Thoughtful, he places the paper with the rest of his recyclables and returns to the work laptop, quickly creating a search for the recently deceased Roland Simms.  It only takes a minute for the computer to spit back results consisting of several reports from various news stations, an obituary from the local paper and – most importantly – a rented funeral home for his wake.  
   
Provenzano Lanza Funeral Home Inc.  
   
Panic rises again as he stares at the listing. Nigel’s funeral is scheduled for that evening, a short, afternoon wake the only prelude to a burial that will be all too soon.  
   
Gabi bought a funeral arrangement of flowers.  
Nigel isn’t answering his phone.  
   
Adam’s stomach flips and he tries to call Nigel one last time.  
   
_“Please leave a message after the tone…”_  
  
It doesn’t even ring.  
                                                                            
OoOoO  
  
TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading~<3
> 
> Your kudos are hacking credit cards, your comments are getting blood hounds to hunt down Nigel.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it. The last chapter. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading this story and giving it a chance. This was my first Adam/Nigel fic and I really enjoyed writing it, love Adam and Nigel more than I had anticipated. C:
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed this story as much as I have writing it and I hope you'll all be with me for it's upcoming sequel~<3 
> 
> Enough from me!!! On with the story!!!
> 
> I own nothing!!!
> 
> This story is in huge debt to diedofennui who made this story as fabulous and amazing as it is and to whom I owe all of the credit for beta reading and double checking of characterization~<3 <3 <3 
> 
> Thank you darling, I really, really cannot thank you enough!!!

Provenzano Lanza Funeral Home is a no smoking zone just like every other fucking building in Manhattan.  Nigel can’t count the number of times he’s been told to put out his cigarette since moving to the foreign city, but it’s happened more than he cares for.

 

Thanks to the strict smoking laws, Nigel has been limited to enjoying his nicotine in his home or on the street for the last half decade.  He thought he would have adjusted to the new circumstances by now, smoking less or adapting to deal with longer stretches without.  He’s far fucking from it if his cravings are anything to go by.

 

Dressed in his best suit, an Armani he’d ordered years ago when money was no issue and he’d had more than enough to burn, and a black dress shirt Gabi had bought him two birthdays ago, Nigel stands on the third floor of Provenzano blowing smoke out the open window.

 

It’s a nice day; warm, sun shining and only a few scattered, fluffy clouds maring the sky.  But Nigel isn’t watching the sky, he’s watching the streets below filled with milling people and taxi cabs.  He’s been watching for over an hour, since the wake – _his_ wake – opened for private viewing.  

 

“ _She hasn’t shown,”_ he thinks irritably, taking another puff to calm nerves too frayed to be soothed by nicotine.  He knows, in his gut _knows,_ that Gabi will show.  She wouldn’t miss this, not his funeral, not after his suicide. She couldn’t be that heartless.

 

…could she?

 

“ _She’ll come_ ,” he reassures himself, finishing off the cigarette to crush the cherry between his fingers and discard the butt in a waste bin that’s certainly not meant to contain cigarettes.

 

Leaning against the window frame, watching Manhattan below, Nigel can’t stop his mind from wondering if maybe the window of time is too limited. Perhaps Gabi’s too far to make it here today.  Maybe this afternoon alone is not enough time for his runaway wife to make it back and pay her respects before his casket is lowered into the earth forever. Will she even bother to try?  He regrets not opting for the wake to last into the night, leaving the burial for the following morning.

 

But too much time would allow for second thoughts, second guessing, less time forces snap decisions, allows emotion to take the forefront over reasoning.  Nigel doesn’t want Gabi to think about it and back out, he wants her to take the plunge, seize her one and only chance to say goodbye before Darko lowers the casket.

 

He’s counting on it.

 

The unexpected distraction of his cellphone brings Nigel’s attention from the window to the device vibrating in his pocket, ringer turned off in respect for the dead and those actually grieving.  He slips the phone from his pocket and looks at the number.  It isn’t Darko.  No one else has his number.

 

No one but Adam.

 

Adam is looking for him.

 

Nigel should have left a note, feels guilty for leaving the house without something for the boy to find in the morning explaining his absence.  He hadn’t done so because he hadn’t wanted to lie, doesn’t want Adam knowing where he’s gone or what he’s doing...what he’s about to do.

 

It’s not something Adam needs to know.

 

He ends the call, forcing it through to his machine before the third ring, and powers off the device.  He promised Adam he’d never lie to him, if he doesn’t answer, he can keep that promise.

 

He just hopes Adam will forgive him for this later.

 

Turning his attention back to the street below, Nigel watches another half dozen pedestrians cross the busy street like true New Yorkers, dodging between stop and go traffic to reach the other side with fearless bravado.

 

The way the people dart out into traffic, it’s like watching the chance and probability statistics for jaywalking collisions.

 

He wonders if anyone would see the humor of someone dying in front of the funeral home.  He would...but then again, he’s pretty fucked up.

 

Shaking his head at the idiot playing chicken with a bus, he focuses his attention on a slowing yellow cab.  It stops at the curb, and Nigel’s eyes narrow on the passenger door.

 

Relief washes over him when Gabi steps out of the car. It’s like he’s finally released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.  It’s a relief that pisses him off.  He shouldn’t be happy to see her; she shouldn’t have this kind of control over him after having thrown his ass to the curb.

 

A second body slides out of the car behind her, a man, _Charlie,_ and he puts his fist through the wall.

 

The kid slips his arm around Gabi’s shoulder, offering support to _his wife_.  

 

“ _She brought that squeaking cunt to my funeral?_ ”  

 

The man she’d left him for?  Backstabbed him with? The man she’d made him kill himself over?

Gabi’s brought Charlie to his goddamn funeral!

 

When Nigel had arrived that morning it had been with wavering thoughts on his plan of action.  The longer he waited the more he second guessed his plan, thinking instead of talking things through, having a real conversation with his wife.

 

His thoughts aren’t wavering anymore.

 

He watches the pair until they disappear out of sight toward the doors.  It isn’t until they’re in the building that Nigel pulls his fist from the hole and brushes drywall from his knuckles as he waits.

Standing in the room alone he counts the two minutes it will take for them to speak to the man at the front desk and be given directions upstairs. He waits another minute for the elevator to bring them up to the third story and listens for the door.  The sound of a quiet beep as it levels on the third story alerts Nigel that the pair have arrived, and he waits as the doors slid open and he’s greeted with the soft murmur of voices as the pair step out of the small metal box and into the hallway.

 

He listens to their steps, ten more seconds, then they’ve reach the viewing room.

 

Nigel opens the door and steps out into the hall.  He can see the back of his wife, dressed to pay her respects in a simple skirt and blouse, black and white.  He’s seen her wear the same outfit to her cello concerts.  Respectful.  Tasteful.  Nothing like the waste of flesh at her side.

Charlie is in jeans and a button up.  Fucking disrespectful.  It makes him want to kill him even more.

 

She’s dyed her hair, he notices as he slinks on silent feet down the hall towards them.  What had once been gorgeous copper red is now striking black.  It’s entirely too dark against her pale skin.  She should have gone with something softer, perhaps a dark blond.  But then, she had most likely thought that Nigel would recognize her too easily with a complimenting shade.

She should have known better, he would recognize her if she’d shaved her head bald.

“So…this is it,” says the kid at Gabi’s side, still oblivious to Nigel’s presence behind them.

 

 _Charlie_. He wasn’t sure before, never having seen a picture of the kid, but that voice…he knows that grating, useless voice.  He’s found Charlie Countryman.  

 

“He’s gone.  You’re safe.”

 

“It was never a matter of being safe,” Gabi corrects, bitter and sorrowful. “Nigel would never hurt me.  He would hurt the people around me.” She steps closer to the casket, closed, with a wreath of flowers laid on top that Nigel hadn’t asked Darko to buy.  “But he would never hurt me.”

 

There’s a picture of Nigel on the table at the casket’s side.  A face for the charred flesh in the wooden box

 

“Nigel was a brutish thug, but he was most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.  I loved him.”

 

“Loved me so much you decided to fuck him behind my back and have him airmailed to you?”

 

“Nigel?”

 

The pair spin, sight landing on the living dead man at their back.  

 

Nigel greets them with a smile, a sardonic twist of lips, and closes the double doors behind him.  

 

“I thought that fucking deal smelt sour.  Reeked from the moment I called that sniveling shit.”  

 

He wants a smoke, but the window is closed and there seems to be a smoke alarm set into the ceiling of every damn room.  He doesn’t need the sprinklers going off.

 

“Betrayal is something I expect in my line of business Gabi.  I live by the fucking expression ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’”   _He’d truly be dead by now if he didn’t._  “But you Gabi…you were meant to be the exception to everything.  Every cynical rule I lived by, the one good thing in my life I could count on.”

 

“You’re a controlling psychopath Nigel!”

 

The fiery spirit he’d fallen in love with is no less bright as she turns on him now.  

 

“I don’t want anything to do with you anymore. I’m done. Our marriage is done.”

 

“That’s not the way it works Gabi.”

 

“She’s not going back to you, you – you greasy fuck!”  

 

Charlie, the one in all of this who should be pissing himself in a corner, steps in front of a woman who isn’t his to protect.  He should know better than to throw himself into the line of fire.

 

“Charlie,” she touches his shoulder, soft fingers gentle but firm. Nigel knows the feel of those fingers, has felt that touch a hundred times before. She’s trying to stop him before he does something stupid and gets himself killed.

 

It won’t save him. Charlie was dead the moment he stepped out of the cab.

 

“No, this sick bastard is trying to corner you, he’s stalking you like a fucking creep,” Charlie says.

 

It’s a show of bravado that Nigel isn’t impressed by.  He can see the tremor in the kid’s hand, his adam’s apple bobbing in an anxious swallow, Charlie knows he’s in over his head.

 

Good, but it won’t save him, not now. It’s too late for that. But it’s good that he knows he’s fucked up before he goes.

 

Nigel ignores Charlie, keeping his eyes on Gabi instead, the only person in the room worth focusing on.  

 

“I meant our marriage vows darling, every fucking word.”  

 

He pulls a Beretta 92 from the inner lining of his jacket and SWR Trident 9 LCD silencer from another, screwing it onto the front.  Loaded with 158 grain Prvi Partizan FMJ subsonic rounds, it’s the closest to Hollywood-style silence a gun can get.  

 

“You’re my fucking wife Gabi.” He levels the gun between her eyes. “Until fucking death do us fucking part.”

 

Horror covers them like a veil, wrapping them in the kind of fear he’s seen a thousand times before, but never on Gabi – he never wanted to see this look on her pretty face. He still doesn’t, but it might be better than letting her go.

 

“Nigel you – you can’t be serious.”

 

Charlie is shoving her back now, pushing her behind him to guard her with his body.  Brave.  Stupid but brave.  

 

“You can’t fire a gun in a funeral home! There are cameras, people will hear you!”

 

“This floor is rented out for my viewing, it’s private. No one is on this floor but you, me, and that sack of shit standing in front of you.” He takes off the safety. “Darko’s already handled the cameras.”

 

She keeps fighting, doesn’t give up, just as Nigel knew she wouldn’t until the light is fading from her eyes:  “There will be evidence Nigel.  Blood on the walls, floor, _bodies_.”

 

“Hardwood flooring. I’ve had more than enough experience to wipe that clean, and the casket is due to be buried tonight.”  

 

Realization dawns in her pretty grey eyes and she turns to the casket, throws the flower arrangement to the floor and grabs the casket’s heavy edge, pushing the lid open.

 

She’s met with silk fabric and soft cushion. _Empty_.  Ready and waiting for the body - _bodies_ \- it was purchased for.  The cream-colored satin of the lining would have looked lovely against her copper hair, it’s a shame she died it black.  He really hates the black.

 

He really hates Charlie.

 

“You think you’re in love with her?” Charlie yells.  

 

Nigel ignores him, keeping his gun trained on the woman he means to kill.  

 

“If you loved her you’d be willing to let her go!  To let her be happy.  You’re just a selfish controlling prick!”

 

“Charlie stop!”  

 

She steps around him toward Nigel, pushes off the hands that grab to pull her back and keep her safe.  She doesn’t make it very far across the floor, no more than a step beyond her new fucktoy before Nigel fires a warning shot past her head.  He isn’t playing games, he isn’t looking for her to come crawling back into his arms, he’s here to burn bridges and cut ties.

 

Gabi takes the hint and stops.

 

“Nigel, please, don’t do this.  Our marriage is over.  It has been for months-”

 

“Over for months?  Fucking months?”  He could laugh. “It hasn’t seemed over to me.  It sure as fuck seemed fucking peachy when you were convincing me to helping your goddamn boyfriend, sucking my cock.”

 

She flinches at his harsh words but stands her ground.

 

“I’ve been seeing Charlie since December, Nigel, I’ve been looking for a way out since August.”

 

August?  He hadn’t seen it.  Cheating since December?  He hadn’t noticed any changes in his Gabi at all, hadn’t expected a thing.

 

“You’ve been fucking behind my back since _December_?”

 

It hurts to hear.  He knew she had to have been doing it for a while, but that long?  

 

“You never told me you were upset Gabi.”

 

She swallows back some of her fear and continues, “I was wrong to leave you the way I did. I should never have hurt you like this – using you to bring Charlie overseas.  But you never would have let me go, you would have followed me like a dog killing every new person that came into my life until one of us was dead.” _Their current situation is proof enough of that_. “I’m sorry that this is what it’s all come to, but you pushed me to it Nigel.  You gave me no other choice…I’m sorry.”

 

“Me too.”  

 

He squeezes the trigger, feels the gears begin to move, but releases as the door pushes open and Adam – breathless – runs inside.  

 

The bullet isn’t fired.  

 

“Adam?”

 

“Kid, quick, get help!”

 

Adam doesn’t listen to Charlie, red faced from running and panting to catch his breath, he’s looking at Nigel, almost meeting his eyes with desperate little flicks between floor and his face.

 

“Nigel you – you can’t.”

 

“Adam what are you doing here?”  

 

This isn’t the time or the place for his Adam.  He should be home, looking through his telescope or watching his show.  This blood-soaked part of Nigel’s world isn’t one he wants his darling to see, ever.

 

“You wouldn’t answer your phone,” he tells him, voice edged with panic. “I need to know if you’re leaving me for Gabi. You said I was better, you said you liked me more.  Why are you here if you chose me?”

 

Guilt consumes him.  He made Adam, his beautiful sweet Adam, panic and run, come for him, desperate and worried.  He should have answered his fucking phone.  

 

“I have chosen you, Adam,” he reassures, voice soft in a way it had only ever been for Gabi before, before, but never again. “I’m cutting ties darling, then I’m coming home.”

 

Skittish blue-grey eyes settle on the gun and Nigel can see the panic that’s racing through his darling.

 

“You’re going to kill them?”

 

This is what Nigel was hoping to protect him from.  It’s one thing for Adam to know he’s a monster, it’s another for him to see it.

 

“She lied to me Adam,” he explains, “she let me believe that she loved me while cheating on me with that sorry fuck.  For _months_.”  His tone grows harder. “I meant my marriage vows when I said them, until _death_.  The only way out of this is for one of us to die.”

 

Adam’s hands are moving, making those tight little fists he makes when nervous or upset.  

 

“You promised me, Nigel.”

 

His finger holds tight on the trigger.

 

“And I haven’t lied to you yet darling.  I won’t.”

 

But Adam’s panic doesn’t ease.

 

“You promised no violence in front of me.”

 

The argument isn’t fair right now, not when Nigel wants this so bad.  

 

“Then you should leave Adam.” It comes out colder than he intends, and for a moment he’s glad that Adam will likely not notice its delivery. “Stand outside the door. This will only take a minute.”

 

Adam’s clenching hands still in their motions to take Nigel’s free hand instead, desperate fingers curling around his larger one. “I-I don’t want to go without you.” He tugs, a little pull, a silent plea.

_Please…_

 

Nigel’s anger dies with that tug. The need for vengeance and blood crumbling as he realizes what he risks losing in favor of killing off something toxic.  The choice isn’t to kill Gabi and Charlie or let them live, it’s between losing everything, or just leaving with Adam.

_Something better._

 

He lowers the gun and makes his choice, looking in Adam’s eyes.  Those beautiful eyes that never really meet his own are on him now, barely holding his gaze as he desperately waits for Nigel to verbalize his answer.

 

Adam needs him.  He needs him more than Nigel needs blood and vengeance.

 

“Okay.”  

 

He shoves the gun down the back of his trousers and tugs at his jacket.  It’s too long and uncomfortable with the silencer screwed in, but he’ll deal with that later.  

 

“I’ll come home with you.”

 

“No violence?”

 

“No violence.”  

 

He looks back to the silent, shocked pair waiting for this to play out.  

 

“Give me my fucking diamonds and get the fuck out of Manhattan.”

 

“Several were sold,” Gabi admits, finding her voice. She doesn’t argue, opening her purse and pulling out the pouch of ice Nigel’s been waiting on for days.  He hadn’t expected all the diamonds to be there, he’s just happy that the whole bag wasn’t hocked at the first pawn shop willing to take something hot.

 

She tosses the bag and he catches it, feels the weight and guesses the losses, and slips it into his pocket.

 

That leaves only one small piece of business. He holds Gabi’s eyes as he slips the plain gold band from his finger and drops it to the floor.  

 

“I expect divorce papers before week’s end.”

 

“I don’t know where you live.”

 

He waves her off, slipping an arm around Adam to lead them back out the door, leave the pair with their empty coffin, and unexpectedly, their lives.

 

“Fax them to Darko.”

 

He never pictured himself as a divorcee.  Widower, dead, but not divorced.

 

He gives his boy a little squeeze, holds him close to feel the heat of his body through the heavy fabric of his suit, smells the soap and sweat on his skin after his desperate flight here.  

 

Nigel hadn’t thought getting divorced could lead to better things.

 

Pressing the button for the ground floor, he kisses the curly mop made wild by wind and smiles into the smell of shampoo.

_His beautiful Adam._

 

OoOoO

 

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading~<3
> 
> Your kudos are playing in traffic, your comments are pawning off diamonds. 
> 
> The author is excited to announce the sequel is partly written. C:

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading~<3
> 
> Your kudos are are playing with bones in the dino exhibit, your comments yelling at Nigel to take Adam home.


End file.
